Trump Midas Touch
Ross Ulbricht is one of the most polarizing figures to emerge from the early internet era. He founded Silk Road, an anonymous online marketplace that operated on the dark web from around 2011 to 2013, where users could buy and sell illegal drugs and other contraband using Bitcoin. The site was credited with processing more than $200 million in illegal sales before federal authorities shut it down. The Dallas Express
On February 4, 2015, Ulbricht was convicted on all counts after a jury trial. On May 29, 2015, he was sentenced to double life imprisonment plus 40 years, without the possibility of parole. He was also ordered to pay about $183 million in restitution based on the total sales of illegal drugs and counterfeit IDs through Silk Road. Prosecutors also alleged he had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in murder-for-hire contracts against people who threatened to expose the operation, though he was never formally convicted of that charge. Wikipedia
The case became a cause célèbre in libertarian and crypto circles, where many viewed the sentence as grotesquely disproportionate and politically motivated. His mother became a prominent public advocate for his release, and a "Free Ross" movement built up around him over the years.
On January 21, 2025, Trump granted Ulbricht a full and unconditional pardon, following a promise he had made at the 2024 Libertarian National Convention. Ulbricht was released from a federal prison in Arizona that evening. Trump was explicit about the political logic behind it — he posted that "the scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," and framed the pardon as a tribute to the Libertarian movement's support of his campaign. WikipediaThe Dallas Express
Since his release, Ulbricht has become something of a celebrity in the cryptocurrency world. He delivered a keynote at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas in May 2025, his first major public appearance since being freed, where he spoke about freedom, decentralization, and unity. He also received an anonymous donation of 300 Bitcoin worth around $31 million, which crypto investigators believe may have originated from someone connected to AlphaBay, another defunct dark web marketplace. CoinDeskFortune
He remains a genuinely divisive figure. To his supporters he's a pioneer of digital freedom and a victim of prosecutorial overreach. To his critics, he ran a marketplace that facilitated enormous quantities of drug trafficking and potentially commissioned murders to protect it. The pardon settled his legal status but not the argument about what he actually represents.