Donald Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for masterminding an online marketplace for illegal drugs and hacking services.
On his second day in office, the new president fulfilled his campaign promise to free Ulbricht, whose imprisonment over the past decade has become a major cause of concern for Bitcoin evangelists and libertarian groups.
At Ulbricht's trial, U.S. prosecutors said he established an anonymous marketplace called Silk Road to exploit the anonymity of the dark web and the digital currency Bitcoin. Ulbricht's supporters paint him as a victim of the government's attempts to turn web hosting into a criminal enterprise.
“The same scumbags who worked to convict him are the same lunatics who participated in the weaponization of modern government against me,” Trump wrote in an article published in Truth Social on Tuesday night. "
Trump promised at the Libertarian Party's national convention last May to pardon Ulbricht, who was arrested at the San Francisco Public Library in 2013.
In announcing the pardon, Trump said it was "a tribute to the liberal movement that has so strongly supported me."
"This is a monumental shift and a cracking of the suffocating walls of national oppression," the Liberals said after the pardon.
The move deepens Trump's ties to the cryptocurrency market after launching his own coin late on Friday. Some of the industry's biggest companies and prominent figures have backed Trump's bid for president, donating millions of dollars to his campaign.
Trump pledged to make the United States the “world’s Bitcoin superpower” and end the persecution of the industry under Joe Biden’s administration.
Some executives celebrated Ulbricht's release. Jesse Powell, co-founder of U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, thanked Trump for keeping his promise and pardoning Ulbricht. "We express our admiration, respect and loyalty to you," he wrote on the X, adding that the former felon was "an absolute legend and inspiration."
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of stablecoin operator Tether, said: “Rose is finally free.”
Silk Road operates on the Tor network and only accepts Bitcoin as payment, which U.S. prosecutors say helps keep its users and their locations anonymous.
Prosecutors said the website allowed criminals to sell large amounts of drugs, computer hacking services and forged documents, among other illegal goods and services. It is named after the historical network of trade routes that connected the Middle East and China with Western countries.
Prosecutors at the trial prepared statements from the families of victims who bought drugs from the website and later died.
At a sentencing hearing in 2015, the judge said Ulbricht commissioned and paid for five murders, although she acknowledged that he was not ultimately charged with them and there was no evidence that any murders occurred. The U.S. government seized 173,991 Bitcoins from Ulbricht's laptop upon his arrest.