- The US government has moved thousands of Bitcoins (BTC) that were previously seized and stored in wallets associated with the SilkRoad darkweb site.
- Under the control of the Department of Justice, 9,825 BTC, worth over $300 million, were transferred to new addresses in three transactions.
- The US government, which had previously sold 9,800 BTC on March 14, had announced that it would dispose of the remaining 41,500 BTC in four separate sales.
Transactions Conducted Using “Replace by Fee” Function
The transactions in question were intriguingly carried out using the “replace by fee” function. This function is typically used to replace a previous transaction with a higher fee transaction. It was designed to accelerate transactions for Bitcoin users when there are a large number of people using Bitcoin simultaneously.
Seizure of Bitcoins from Silk Road
In 2013, the US government seized 144,000 BTC from Silk Road. Notably, in November 2022, over 50,000 BTC were seized from James Zhong, who had defrauded Silk Road nine years earlier. Zhong was sentenced to prison after admitting to electronic fraud related to the same amount of Bitcoin stolen from Silk Road in 2012.
Tracking Bitcoin Wallets through Legal Documents
Legal documents contained details about the Bitcoin wallets, including documents related to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. Thanks to this information, blockchain analytics companies are able to track these addresses.
