President Donald Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road who was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of money laundering, narcotics trafficking and computer hacking. “I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbright [sic] to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Ulbricht has been serving a life sentence since 2015. Prosecutors alleged that the dark web marketplace Ulbricht created was “used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to well over a hundred thousand buyers, and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions.” Ulbricht was also accused of attempting to order assassinations of his perceived enemies, though prosecutors said there was “no evidence that these murders were actually carried out.”
The reprieve for Ulbricht comes after he tried, and failed, to appeal his sentence in 2017. Crypto enthusiasts, many of whom supported Trump during the 2024 election, have long argued that his sentence was too harsh. Trump said during his campaign that he would commute Ulbricht’s sentence “on day one” if he was reelected.
