On June 2, 2025, Todayq reported that the donation wallet linked to Ross Ulbricht had received 300 Bitcoin; however, the BTC’s sender remained unknown then.
Chainalysis, a blockchain intelligence firm, told WIRED that the funds received by Ross’s wallet were received from Alphabay, a predecessor of Silk Road.
The firm further notes that the funds came from a primary vendor on the platform who would have had access to such a substantial amount.
Phil Larratt, the director of investigation at Chainalysis, said, “We have reasonable grounds to suspect that these funds originated in AlphaBay.” He adds, “Looking at the amount, that would suggest they came from someone who was possibly a vendor on AlphaBay back in the early days.”
This donation of 300 Bitcoins has raised speculations about the ties of both the marketplaces, or an attempt to fund new dark market activities.
A quick brief about AlphaBay
According to available information, AlphaBay was a darknet marketplace that operated on the Tor Network from December 2014 to 2017. It was one of the largest online platforms for illegal goods and services and, for most of the time, was considered the predecessor of Silk Road.
AlphaBay hosted over 369,000 product listings and had more than 400,000 registered users, which makes it larger than Silk Road. The alleged founder and administrators of AlphaBay were Alexander Cazes, a Canadian citizen operating under the pseudonym Alpha 02 or Admin.
AlphaBay emerged in 2014 following the Silk Road shutdown in October 2023; the marketplace was often termed as ‘ the new Silk Road,’ as both of them use cryptocurrencies for payments and the Tor Browser for surfing.
The available information notes that AlphaBay was seized in Operation Bayonet in July 2017. The authorities have seized around $10 million in cryptocurrencies, luxury cars, properties, and servers associated with the marketplace.
Also, the authorities detained Alexander Cazes in Thailand in 2017. A week later, he was found dead in his cell, with Thai authorities suspecting that he had hanged himself.
Crypto market price updates
When writing, the crypto market capitalization was $3.22 trillion with a loss of 2.02% in the past 24 and at the same time, the trading volume was $145.42 billion, which is up by more than 20%.
The crypto fear and greed index has continued to fade with currently at 46, indicating neutrality. The index was at 50 on June 05, 2025.
Bitcoin has continued to fade, with at press time it has been exchanging hands at $103,233 with a loss of 1.21%, the market cap has reached $2.09 trillion with a decline of 2.12%, and trading volume has also grown to $61.48 billion.
According to the data from CoinMarketCap, the intraday gainers list has been ruled by Fartcoin, followed by Floki, Tron, Kaspa, Monera, and Raydium.
