Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht, creator of Silk Road Drug Marketplace

President Trump on Tuesday pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road drug market and a cult hero in the cryptocurrency and libertarian world.

In doing so, Mr. Trump fulfilled a promise he made repeatedly on the campaign trail by soliciting political contributions from the crypto industry, which spent more than $100 million to influence the outcome elections. A Bitcoin pioneer, Mr. Ulbricht, 40, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015, after being convicted of charges including distributing narcotics over the Internet.

“I just called Ross William Ulbright’s mother to let her know,” Mr. Trump wrote in an article on Truth Social, misspelling Mr. Ulbricht’s name and referring to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. “The scum who worked to convict him were some of the same crazy people who were involved in the modern-day weaponization of the government against me. »

In its nearly three years of existence, Silk Road, which operated in a dark corner of the Internet known as the dark web, became an international drug marketplace, facilitating more than 1.5 million transactions, including sale of heroin, cocaine and other illicit substances. (The site generated more than $200 million in revenue, according to authorities.) In court, prosecutors argued that Mr. Ulbricht also solicited the killings of people he considered threats — but recognized there was no evidence that the murders took place.

Despite his crimes, Mr. Ulbricht remained popular with crypto enthusiasts because Silk Road was one of the first places where people used Bitcoin to buy and sell goods. For years, his supporters argued his sentence was too punitive and adopted the slogan “Free Ross” online and at industry rallies.

“It’s hard to argue that Ross Ulbricht wasn’t the most successful and influential entrepreneur of the early Bitcoin era,” said Pete Rizzo, editor-in-chief of the news publication Bitcoin Magazine. “It’s the industry coming together and saying, ‘We’re going to get ours back.’”