It's crazy Ross had that much bitcoin in a hot wallet ($600k) exploitable with a race condition and Zhong was the only one to exploit it ... I also didn't realize he was on the spectrum but the article kind of beats us over the head with it calling him autistic three times ... Getting himself laid is probably a better use of the money than spending it on whatever the government will.

I had been waiting for a quality article to be written about this. I'm pretty burned out on most news "articles" amounting to "BREAKING" tweet threads.

In 2012, James Zhong hacked the Silk Road dark web marketplace and stole approximately 50,000 BTC, worth around $600,000 at the time. He hid the Bitcoin on a computer in a Cheetos popcorn tin in his bathroom closet[1].

Over the years, Zhong moved and obfuscated the funds, but the IRS eventually traced the Bitcoin to him in 2021 using blockchain analysis. In November 2022, Zhong was sentenced to a year in prison for wire fraud. The government seized 50,591 BTC from him, worth $3.4 billion at the time[1].

Zhong lived a lavish lifestyle with the stolen funds, spending $16 million in the 51 months before his arrest on real estate, luxury goods, travel, and other expenses[1]. He was caught due to a small transfer of $1,000 worth of BTC to an address he had used previously to move Silk Road funds[1].

The Silk Road dark web marketplace, founded by Ross Ulbricht in 2011, was one of the first major use cases for Bitcoin. At its peak, it processed around 1.5 million transactions and had over 10,000 listings for controlled substances[1]. Ulbricht is currently serving two life sentences plus 40 years for his role in operating the site[1].

Citations: [1] https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/3-4-billion-bitcoin-popcorn-tin-silk-road-hacker/