Why did Donald Trump free Ross Ulbricht? An idealist libertarian or ‘the most dangerous man on the internet’
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Standing on stage at the Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville last summer, Donald Trump knew exactly how to get the crowd on his side. After promising to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet” and fire the deeply unpopular SEC chairman Gary Gensler, the Republican candidate made a pledge that received one of the biggest cheers of his speech.
“I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served,” he said, referring to the founder of the notorious dark web marketplace Silk Road, who had been in prison since 2013. “It’s enough, it’s enough.”. On Tuesday – the first full day of his presidency – Trump granted Ulbricht a full and unconditional pardon, allowing him to walk free after more than 11 years of incarceration.
Four of those years imprisoned were during Trump’s first term in office, leading some to accuse the incoming president of pandering to a fringe segment of voters who the Republican candidate courted during his campaign. This group was made up of libertarians and cryptocurrency holders, who had made Ulbricht into a cause celebre after he was handed a double life sentence plus 40 years for non-violent crimes.
He was seen as a champion of internet freedom and the person who built the platform that provided the first mass use case of bitcoin. The Free Ross website, which was run by his family, described him as an “idealistic libertarian, passionate about free markets and privacy”.
The dark web site was based on the libertarian non-aggression principle, allowing people to buy and sell anything, so long as no third party was harmed. The rules of the site, which was only accessible through specialist software, meant that child pornography, stolen goods, violent services and fraudulent activity were strictly prohibited.
