Holy crap! He stole 50,000 bitcoins from the Silk Road, hid them for 9 years, and in the end the FBI found the key inside a popcorn tin.
A big shot has mapped out the bitcoin transaction history for James Zhong, who was indicted. In 2012, he used a payment system vulnerability on Silk Road to steal about 50,000 bitcoins. After that, he hid those bitcoins away for nearly a decade.
In November 2021, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division raided his residence in Gainesville and seized approximately 50,491 bitcoins (worth about $3.36 billion at the time) from equipment in a floor safe... as well as a single-board computer tucked under a blanket inside a popcorn tin stashed in a bathroom wall cabinet.
There were also: $661,000 in cash and 25 Casascius coins (each equivalent to 1 bitcoin).
What really tripped him up was the on-chain transactions. Years later, he mixed an address related to the Silk Road into a spending record from a wallet that had already been registered under his name. Just that one transaction—turns out it was that simple.
I traced how the funds were consolidated into the seized wallet. Watching billions that had been idle for years suddenly pour into one place—it's absolutely insane.
Moral: You might be able to outsmart the Silk Road, but you can’t outsmart a popcorn tin. 😂
What do you think? #比特币突破8万美元大关 $BTC
A big shot has mapped out the bitcoin transaction history for James Zhong, who was indicted. In 2012, he used a payment system vulnerability on Silk Road to steal about 50,000 bitcoins. After that, he hid those bitcoins away for nearly a decade.
In November 2021, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation division raided his residence in Gainesville and seized approximately 50,491 bitcoins (worth about $3.36 billion at the time) from equipment in a floor safe... as well as a single-board computer tucked under a blanket inside a popcorn tin stashed in a bathroom wall cabinet.
There were also: $661,000 in cash and 25 Casascius coins (each equivalent to 1 bitcoin).
What really tripped him up was the on-chain transactions. Years later, he mixed an address related to the Silk Road into a spending record from a wallet that had already been registered under his name. Just that one transaction—turns out it was that simple.
I traced how the funds were consolidated into the seized wallet. Watching billions that had been idle for years suddenly pour into one place—it's absolutely insane.
Moral: You might be able to outsmart the Silk Road, but you can’t outsmart a popcorn tin. 😂
What do you think? #比特币突破8万美元大关 $BTC
