Topic: Silk Road wallet worth more $1B possibly has been hacked (Read 378 times)

 I wonder how they can afford to pay people social security checks every month.  Hopefully, it will go into that.

that was my original assumption, and is probably the case. after reading through the pleadings though, i'm not actually sure. the US attorney only says


......which makes me wonder if he leaked his identity in other ways.

In that conversation you can find the most intriguing version of what might have happened back then. We would probably never know the real explanation but this one stands out for me.

I also have the same doubt. Silk Road was a very sophisticated marketplace. I don't think that it is something that Ross Ulbricht can create alone. Also, there were tens of thousands of vendors and it would have been impossible for him to manage all of them. I assume at least a dozen people were involved in running Silk Road and they vanished once Ross was caught. Probably the temptation to cash out, finally overpowered their zeal to remain anonymous.

Maybe it is really not hacked. Just like everyone else thinks maybe old owner finally recover his wallet for a long period of time, or maybe he will put that amount to another wallet or maybe he is up to something, maybe he will create his project and needed funds, or he will convert his bitcoin into another altcoin in the market. If government is the reason behind this   1B is really a big deal, once they finally sell it in lower amount, the chat may crash and might get dump badly I think.

There are still very much secure crypto vaults around the industry. I think what just happened is someone not comfortable with the legacy wallet for storage and tend to move into another, which is always a recommended. The possibility of we see this a hacking scenario shows that reading is not our culture. This movement should be aim at having their funds secure into a better place without issue. Although, there have been rumors going around that the US government has made some plans to auction some of their Bitcoin in possession, but isn't clear if this is associated with the information. 

Either chainanalysis got really strong now, or the hacker made some serious mistakes when handling the stolen coins, and it's probably the latter, because otherwise we'd see a lot of stolen coins suddenly being identified. This kinda shows us that no one is immune from mistakes, even people who are l33t enough to steal billions of dollars worth of coins.


Someone who will buy them from the auction, obviously. I'm sure there won't be a shortage of people willing to buy the coins, especially if they will be sold at a slightly below market price.

They have at least a partial BTC-e database which leaked years ago, and also possibly wex's database, this year NZ authorities have also frozen $90M worth of fiat, perhaps Americans will put their hands on it to cover a portion of the fine that BTC-e has been issued.


Probably the US Department of Justice? The bitcoins are going to be auctioned, of course.

The American intelligence services noted that this is the largest amount for the entire existence of cryptocurrencies that they have confiscated. And now the most interesting thing begins - who exactly will become the owner of all this fabulous wealth ??

Stellar Bloomberg job, as you said, malevolent. They never need to retract anything either, just keep the editors and Wall Street board members happy but hey, who can blame them? Been in that unenviable position before meself!

Anyway, what a month it'll be for Individual X. #noenvy

What a conscious hackers! At first they were able to hack into a BTC wallet... Then, oh miracle, made a trial transaction of 1 BTC! LOL... And then transferred the rest of the amount!
Well, at the end of their work they decided to return everything to the government! Well done!

How in general can believe such stories from the media?

Ah. So it was stolen from Silk Road. Didn't catch that bit before. I wonder if handing it over may be the end of it for them. It's not as if Ross is going to sue them. A slightly high price to pay for an easy life.

What's the amount of American law enforcement involvement in BTC-e?

Stellar reporting from bloomberg, yet again.


So he got caught because he sent a small portion of the coins to his BTC-e account, one that must have been easy to tie to his real identity.

I was thinking the same. Besides, not every heavy transaction should be tagged as a "hack". Even tho they were sent to an exchange, it still isn't enough reason for such a conclusion.

Identify the person. Drop extremely heavy legal threats. They roll over and give up their holdings?

It usually works in most cases. There must've been some sort of smoking gun for them to think they had no other option. I guess we may find out some day. More often than not these people make some laughable mistake that gives them up just as Ross did.

How can this happen? the Wallet itself or the PC that holds the addresses got hacked?

If the wallet itself got hacked, I mean if the hackers bruteforced the private keys, which is practically impossible but theoretically is not, then it is pretty fucked up.

Either way I don't think I believe it.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7319611-Complaint.html

The U.S. is suing for the forfeiture of thousands of Bitcoins, totaling more than $1 billion, that it seized on Tuesday.

The cryptocurrency seizure, tied to the Silk Road marketplace, is the largest the U.S. has ever made, the Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday.

The seizure takes a swath of the digital cryptocurrency out of circulation at least temporarily, likely contributing to an increase of about 7% in its price, to about $15,200, on Thursday. In the past, federal authorities have auctioned off seized Bitcoins, but usually months after acquiring them.

The authorities seized the funds from an unknown hacker who had gained access to them, according to the statement. The Bitcoin address at which they probably seized the currency is the fourth-richest in the world, according to BitInfoCharts. Researcher Elliptic flagged that the funds were on the move on Tuesday.

The funds were associated with the Silk Road website, which used Bitcoin to peddle everything from drugs to murder-for-hire until it was shut down by U.S. agents in 2013. Silk Road, operated by Ross William Ulbricht starting in January 2011, used Bitcoins to generate the equivalent of $1.2 billion in illicit sales and reap $80 million in commissions in less than three years, according to court documents.

from

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-05/u-s-seeks-forfeiture-of-bitcoin-valued-at-over-1-billion

What's the betting that every remaining SR coin eventually winds up in the hands of the government? And then the fat cats who buy them at auction. Quite an amusing fate considering their origins.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/justice-department-seizes-1-billion-in-recently-moved-silk-road-crypto

In a filing from Wednesday, the Department of  Justice asked to seize $1 billion from an unnamed hacker. Specifically, the DoJ is asking the court of the Northern District of California to lock down on: "Approximately 69,370.22491543 Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), obtained from 1HQ3Go3ggs8pFnXuHVHRytPCq5fGG8Hbh."

The address used by the hackers is linked with the Silk Road darknet market that more recently has become a popular hacking target.