Did Satoshi Nakamoto transfer 1,000 bitcoins to the Silk Road?

Two computer scientists in Israel say a bitcoin transaction now worth more than $1 million suggests a possible link between a creator of the virtual currency and Ross William Ulbricht, the 29-year-old accused of running the Silk Road underground online marketplace.

The 1,000-bitcoin transfer was found during an analysis of the movement of the Silk Road’s bitcoins, according to a forthcoming research paper written by Adi Shamir and Dorit Ron of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

The finding suggests a partnership or investment in the Silk Road on the part of someone involved very early on in Bitcoin “but this is pure speculation,” the researchers wrote.

The amount was transferred on March 20 from an account established just a week after the bitcoin network launched in January 2009. Early bitcoin accounts are believed to be controlled by Satoshi Nakamoto, a pseudonym for the person or group of people who created Bitcoin.

The receiving account has been linked to “DPR,” short for “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the operator of the Silk Road who authorities alleged is Ulbricht. The bitcoins were worth about $60,000 at the time, but the price of bitcoin has since surged.

“The short path we found suggests (but does not prove) the existence of a surprising link between the two mysterious figures of the Bitcoin community, Satoshi Nakamoto and DPR,” they wrote.

Nakamoto’s real identity has never been uncovered despite attempts to figure out who has the cryptography and mathematical skills to create such a system. He stopped writing posts on a bitcoin forum in 2010.