- Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015.
- Libertarians rallied to free the Silk Road founder.
- Trump promised to free Ulbricht during his 2024 campaign.
Donald Trump just followed through on his first promise to the crypto industry as US president.
On Tuesday, he announced on Truth Social, his social media platform, that he had unconditionally pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the dark web marketplace Silk Road.
Federal authorities arrested and detained Ulbricht in 2013.
Two years later, he was sentenced to life in prison for creating and operating a website that allowed users to buy and sell illegal drugs, among other illicit products and services.
Prosecutors linked Silk Road to at least six drug overdose deaths.
“The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponisation of government against me,” Trump wrote.
An Ulbricht family-run X account posted an elated message after the president’s pardon.
“Words cannot express how grateful we are,” wrote Ulbricht’s wife. “President Trump is a man of his word and he just saved Ross’s life. ROSS IS A FREE MAN!!!!!”
Public library sting
On its face, the push to free Ross Ulbricht seems like an unlikely cause for a sitting president to support.
Ulbricht founded Silk Road in 2011, and it quickly grew to become a digital bazaar for a suite of illegal products, especially illicit drugs like heroin, cocaine, and marijuana.
Operating the website under the pseudonym ‘Dread Pirate Roberts,’ Ulbricht allowed users to buy and sell products with Bitcoin, which was then a niche online experiment.
As Silk Road grew, so did Bitcoin’s profile as a pseudonymous digital currency.
But in 2013, FBI agents apprehended Ulbricht at a public library in San Francisco and shut down the website.
While the Silk Road founder was apologetic during his sentencing hearing in 2015, where he was ordered to forfeit almost $200 million, he also said his founding of SIlk Road stemmed from his libertarian beliefs.
“I wanted to empower people to make choices in their lives...to have privacy and anonymity,” Ulbricht told the judge, according to Wired. “I’m not a sociopathic person trying to express some inner badness.”
Libertarian cause célèbre
Ulbricht’s connection with libertarianism and his support of Bitcoin turned the Silk Road founder into a Bitcoin folk hero.
Bitcoiners similarly loathe government regulation and admire a digital currency untethered to any government backing.
After Ulbricht’s sentencing in 2015, a subset of the community rallied around him and pushed to free the Silk Road founder from prison.
As crypto executives curried Trump’s favour during the 2024 elections, the 47th president adopted some of their policy priorities.
“Today I repeat my promise to commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.” Trump said during a speech at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, according to the Associated Press.
Onlookers cheered, and, on Monday, Trump followed through on his campaign promise.
Ben Weiss is DL News’ Dubai Correspondent. Got a tip? Email at bweiss@dlnews.com.