The dubious story behind Ross Ulbricht's $30M donation: 300 Bitcoins traced back to old Silk Road wallets

Ross Ulbricht didn’t get handed 300 Bitcoin by some mystery savior. He sent the money to himself—at least, that’s what the author of this article thinks.

Now, around twenty-four hours ago, shortly after Ross made a historic appearance at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas, a wallet tied to the former Silk Road operator suddenly received 300 BTC, worth roughly $31.4 million.

According to data tracked by blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence, the funds landed in a wallet that has been publicly linked to Ross. People quickly assumed it was another round of donations he’d been receiving since being released.

Ross’s belongings have gotten him around $1.8 million in Bitcoin after an auction at the event. One of the pieces, his final prison ID card, was sold for 5.5 Bitcoins, or $580,380.

Sleuth connects mixer trail to old exchange wallets

Crypto investigator ZachXBT has been on the fence about the donation story from the start. He pointed out that the 300 BTC didn’t come straight from an exchange or a new wallet. It was funneled through Jambler, a centralized Bitcoin mixer that most privacy-conscious users don’t even touch.

“Interestingly the 300 BTC appears to come from Jambler outputs,” Zach said on X, adding, “Whereas normal privacy enthusiasts use decentralized mixers like Wasabi, Samourai, etc.”

Zach dug deeper and came back to share that he’d found two wallets—1Mp5hHZNv9a5Lnu7DvKtFgpneEaVK7mj39 and 1CNDWv3gX5BvhcUxR7xCE9WTFZF7M5qR2P—that had been dormant since late 2014 and 2019, respectively.

Both had past exchange activity, and one of them had even been flagged in compliance systems. Zach stated that both wallets began sending large deposits into Jambler between April and May 2025—right before the 300 BTC showed up in Ross’s donation wallet.

“Few entities regularly use Jambler in size,” Zach wrote. “So I found a potential demix for the donation. 1Mp5hH originates from late 2014 exchange activity. 1CNDW has 2019 exchange activity and was previously flagged in compliance tools. Both had dormant BTC from Nov 2019 until the mixer deposits.”

Zach concluded that the coins were sent from addresses that shared suspicious overlaps in activity, timing, and history.

Crypto Twitter reacts with confusion and sarcasm

Not everyone liked the idea that Ross might’ve just dusted off his own coins. One user replied, “You’re trying too hard dude, let Ross enjoy his donation.. We don’t care where it came from.” Zach shot back, “It’s $30M not $200K. Of course it’s interesting who sent it.”

The user then said, “Wouldn’t it be sick if YOU were one of the very few people who actually knew and didn’t have to let ct or the feds in on it?”

Zach responded, “Everyone was accusing Ross of a self donation so if anything this proves it was a donation and not his ‘secret stash’ because there was activity when he was away in prison.”

Someone else wasn’t having any of it. “You have to be truly r*tarded to think Ross would send a ‘secret stash’ to his very public address,” they wrote.

And another user piled on with, “You think DPR went to jail with no bitcoin left? My man is still stuck in 2012. 300 Bitcoin through a centralized mixer. LOLOL.”

This user referenced a May 6 post by Sani, the founder of TimechainIndex that alleges activity from two Bitcoin addresses—1NWPS2fWw6FMeJEjg6DMMpYxQyB4TKpVsb and 1PiEKBgsBmCT4VuwFKLdGpXMNh99ebMPf—which together moved 3,422 BTC. Those coins were traced back to Silk Road origins through historic UTXO consolidations.

Sani’s findings pointed to a 10,000 BTC transaction—TXID 53952c5a7c9f461d3e274cd92227df589d2ff7eea6eeae88a67868d58d08afcb—which fed into the addresses. 

Another batch of funds later flowed into wallet 1GA7hEmKv9L2mh5NCfgnLFufAb7bEMdnNS, coming out of a separate 19,940 BTC consolidation, tied to TXID b555a4399797c784033863dda38abef7b8adcaf6748e9519dcb175fb1d04ee0.

That same 19,940 BTC was previously seized by US authorities after Ross’s arrest. The recent movement of those old addresses was the first in over 12 years, and while the identity of whoever moved the coins remains unknown, the wallets are clearly linked to Silk Road.