11 years ago on 4/20 the biggest Bitcoin “robbery“ happened on Silk Road. 50k BTC ($1.5B) were stolen in disguise of a “4/20 Sale“.

Yesterday we all celebrated the almighty 4/20 day but that day was not always so nice. 11 years ago on 20th April 2012 the biggest Bitcoin robbery, arguably ever, happened on Silk Road where through a “4/20 Sale and Giveaway“ products were heavily discounted, attracting a lot of buyers and many also with Bitcoin.

For those unaware, Silk Road was a darknet site to buy drugs, guns are more illegal things and you could pay with Bitcoin there. As weird as it may sound, Silk Road was a reason Bitcoin was pushed into the mainstream and used way more.

On that 4/20 Sale a person called Tony76, who already have a very good image there and was well-known, put out massive discounts for his products and even offered shipping outside the US, for the first time.

​

Excerpt from dailydot article

Then things went awry…

Tony76 started warning his customers about another seller that tried to set up fake accounts to get the sales and defraud customers. Tony76 would have lost a lot of money through that.

To counter being scammed, his customers should make their buys already before 4/20 and many did so because the discounts were just outrageous. But after 4/20 no one actually received their products…

One of the biggest Silk Road sellers had just disappeared in to thin air, he was gone and took $250k worth of BTC with him. With a price of $5 back then that would be about 50k BTC today and at about the current prices that is a massive $1.5B if he held through, by scamming people on 4/20 he may just have become a billionaire.

​

Bonus: Later a bounty was put on Tony76 and there are claims that some may have actually killed him but the authorities until today could not confirm that.

​

Story of a possible bounty on Tony76 by dailydot