I dunno which Silk Road you're talking about, but the story we're supposed to believe regarding the first Silk Road is that Ulbricht used the name "altoid" both

I dunno which Silk Road you're talking about, but the story we're supposed to believe regarding the first Silk Road is that Ulbricht used the name "altoid" both when announcing the site initially and before that on a programming forum in association with an email address tied to his real name. I believe that he really was that sloppy, but I'm still skeptical that this story isn't a parallel construction.