The founder of the darknet marketplace Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, received 300 BTC, worth around $31.4 million, in a single donation from an unknown wallet, data from Arkham Intelligence shows. 

Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison, received a full and unconditional pardon from U.S. President Donald Trump on January 21. He was released following the pardon after serving 12 years in prison.

Blockchain data further indicates that Ulbricht transferred the received funds on June 1, sending $31.29 million to one address and $10,000.43 to another. 

The latest donation amount far exceeds those Ulbricht received after his release. A wallet operated by the Free Ross campaign bagged $270,000 worth of Bitcoin within days after he was freed. The funds were donated to “help Ross’s transition into his new life.”

Ulbricht’s personal items have fetched $1.8 million in an auction so far

The above transactions took place after Ulbricht had already secured $1.8 million from his ongoing auction of personal items. The auction, which is live till June 2, is being conducted on the Bitcoin-only marketplace Scarce City. 

In a note on Scarce City, Ulbricht wrote: 

“I’ve decided to auction some personal items from before my arrest and during my time in prison. I don’t need the reminders, and I’m sure some of you will love to have them.”

The personal items up for auction include a sleeping bag and backpack from before his arrest, prison ID cards, and paintings he created during his incarceration. 

Ulbricht’s most recent prison ID card was sold for 5.5 BTC, worth over $580,000, after the winning bid of 11 BTC (worth approximately $1.1 million) was not paid. 

According to the item’s description, Ulbricht had to have his ID reissued with a recent photo in 2024 after a prison guard threatened to suspend his visitation rights. Talking about the ID photo, which depicts Ulbricht smiling, he noted: 

“The guard tried to get me to stop smiling for the photo, but my joy comes from within, so I smiled that day, even though I was in prison :)”

A December 2023 oil painting entitled ‘Archway,’ which Ulbricht created in collaboration with a fellow inmate who goes by Omega, was sold for 1.01 BTC, worth over $106,000. The item’s description noted that Omega had taught Ulbricht oil painting techniques. He wrote:

“I loved the look of this archway in a photograph so much, I had to paint it. It gave me the feeling that, if I could pass through it, something better would be on the other side.”

Ulbricht can access millions of dollars worth of dormant BTC

In addition to the large sums Ulbricht has racked up in donations, he might also have access to millions of dollars worth of BTC that were never seized by the U.S. government. During the 2013 Silk Road bust, the government had seized over 100,000 BTC.

On Jan. 22, Coinbase director Conor Grogan found 430 BTC, worth around $47 million, across multiple wallets linked to Ulbricht. These wallets were lying dormant for over 13 years, Grogan noted. 

Grogan’s discovery was confirmed by Arkham Intelligence, which traced 14 Bitcoin wallets linked to Silk Road, one of which contains BTC worth $9 million.

Earlier last month, two of these dormant wallets became active, transferring 3,422 BTC worth $324.2 million.

Mentioned in this article

The crypto market has just witnessed one of its most brutal quarters on record, with a staggering 1.8 million tokens dying in the first three months of 2025 alone.

According to a damning new study by CoinGecko, these Q1 failures account for nearly half of all token deaths in the last five years.

Rise and Fall of Instant Tokens

The numbers captured in the report are sobering: nearly one in four tokens launched since 2021 are now considered dead. At the heart of this token extinction event is a storm triggered by a market correction following Bitcoin’s brief post-inauguration rally in January 2025 and the unchecked rise of token generators like Pump.fun.

While the platform, launched in early 2024, has democratized token creation, critics argue that it has also contributed to diluting the industry’s integrity. It allows users to launch coins in mere minutes without needing any coding knowledge, fueling a meme coin gold rush that overwhelmed crypto platforms and flooded markets with short-lived speculative assets.

Since mid-2021, GeckoTerminal has listed nearly 7 million tokens, but according to the report, 52.7%, amounting to more than 3.7 million cryptocurrencies, have now stopped trading and have officially been categorized as “failed.” While the sharp uptick in failures started in 2024, Q1 2025 has been particularly brutal, with at least 1.8 million tokens going dark by March 31.

A Market in Crisis

Historically, the rate at which crypto projects collapsed was relatively modest. Per the CoinGecko survey, out of more than 428,000 tokens listed in 2021, only 2,584 failed.

The number of listed crypto assets increased to 724,706 in 2022, with failures also growing significantly to 213,075. These figures remained fairly consistent in 2023, with 835,183 created and about 245,000 dying.

However, in 2024, the number of launched tokens skyrocketed, going past the 3 million mark thanks in part to Pump.fun. Such was the amount of activity on the platform that at one point it became the main driver behind Solana’s recent dominance of the decentralized exchange (DEX) market. Still, the high number of coins churned resulted in just as many deaths, hitting north of 1.3 million by the end of that year.

2025 seems to have picked up where 2024 left off. Only slightly more than 117,000 tokens out of the 1.93 million that were created in the first three months of the year have survived, meaning just under 94% fizzled out unceremoniously.

In crypto trading, timing is everything and can be the difference between huge profits or disappointing losses. This was made quite clear recently when a crypto whale pocketed $1.8 million in profits from Aave (AAVE) trades but left a staggering $10.9 million on the table due to a poorly timed exit.

The whale, identified by the wallet address “0xfc0,” accumulated 43,885 AAVE tokens over three months before later selling them.

A Costly Mistake in Timing

Blockchain data shared by Spot on Chain shows that, between August 23 and November 27, the whale bought the tokens at an average price of $145.90 each. It means they spent about $6.4 million in the whole exercise, later staking the assets on Aave to earn rewards.

However, on March 20, the whale unstaked 44,765 AAVE and transferred them to Binance at $183.27 per token, earning $8.2 million and putting them $1.8 million in profit.

However, despite the 28% gain, the move cost the trader a much larger windfall. According to Spot on Chain, had they sold the stash at AAVE’s December highs, when one token changed hands for upwards of $380, they would have realized a $10.9 million windfall.

Meanwhile, another large investor recently moved 43,500 AAVE worth around $7.48 million to FalconX after being inactive for four months. On-chain data shows that this particular whale holds 67,426 coins valued at approximately $11.61 million, with total profits of $12.72 million, marking an 88.4% increase in the value of their investment.

AAVE Price Performance

Earlier in the month, AAVE’s value shot up 26% to $220 after the lending platform’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) announced a proposal to redistribute net excess revenue to the ecosystem’s key contributors.

However, the token has shed off much of the gains made at that time, with its current price standing at $177.91. While it is up 4.1% in the last 24 hours, it remains almost 30% lower than it was a month ago.

In addition, even though AAVE has climbed 4.2% in the last seven days, it has been underwhelming compared to the rest of the crypto market, which has gained 6% in that period.

Looking at exchange activity, Binance has led AAVE trading, handling more than 11% of its volume in the previous 24 hours, amounting to $44.27 million.

Compared to its all-time high of $661.69 achieved in May 2021, the asset is still 73.1% below its peak. In contrast, its price right now is a 583.4% improvement on its all-time low, set five years ago.