On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump granted a full and unconditional pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road. Ulbricht had been serving a life sentence for operating an underground online marketplace that facilitated over $200 million in illegal transactions, primarily using bitcoin.
Fulfilling a campaign promise, Trump pardoned Ulbricht, who was arrested in 2013 and sentenced in 2015 in a landmark case that emerged just a few years after bitcoin gained popularity.
“The individuals responsible for his conviction were the same radical elements involved in the government’s current weaponization against me,” Trump stated on his Truth Social platform.
Trump personally informed Ulbricht’s mother of the pardon, and Ulbricht was released from a federal prison in Arizona on Tuesday, according to Bureau of Prisons records.
Brandon Sample, Ulbricht’s clemency attorney, welcomed the decision, stating, “After more than a decade behind bars, this pardon gives Ross a chance to start over, rebuild his life, and make a positive contribution to society.”
Trump’s administration is expected to shift away from the regulatory crackdown on cryptocurrencies seen under former Democratic President Joe Biden.
In May, Trump had signaled his intention to commute Ulbricht’s sentence during a speech at the Libertarian National Convention. The Libertarian Party, known for advocating drug legalization, had long supported Ulbricht’s release, citing government overreach in his prosecution.
Silk Road and Bitcoin Transactions
Ulbricht’s arrest marked the end of what prosecutors called a global black market that operated between 2011 and 2013. The Silk Road platform was reportedly used by over 100,000 people to conduct transactions worth $214 million, involving illegal drugs and other illicit services.
Prosecutors linked the marketplace to multiple drug-related deaths and claimed that Silk Road leveraged the Tor network to facilitate anonymous communications while using bitcoin to obscure users’ identities and locations.
Authorities alleged that Ulbricht operated Silk Road under the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts,” a reference to the 1987 film The Princess Bride, and took extreme measures to protect the platform, including allegedly soliciting the murders of individuals he saw as threats. However, no evidence was found that any such murders were carried out.
During his trial, Ulbricht admitted to creating Silk Road but maintained that his intention was to establish a “freewheeling, free market site.” His defense argued that he later relinquished control of the platform and was ultimately set up as a scapegoat by its true operators.
At his 2015 sentencing hearing, Ulbricht expressed his initial motivations: “I wanted to empower people to make their own choices with privacy and anonymity.”
In February 2015, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted Ulbricht on multiple charges, including drug distribution, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and money laundering.
“Your actions were unprecedented,” remarked U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest at his sentencing. “As the first person to break this ground, you must now face the consequences.”