Tristan on Nostr: January 21st, 2025 will be significant for Bitcoiners for years to come. After 12 ...
January 21st, 2025 will be significant for Bitcoiners for years to come. After 12 years of imprisonment on a double life sentence, Ross Ulbricht was fully pardoned by President Donald Trump.
In his speech at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference, President Trump said he would pardon Ross on day one in office. However, day one was January 20th and the pardon did not come. Day two was when the pardon came. The 21st, a number synonymous with Bitcoin because of the 21 million fixed supply of Bitcoin, does seem to be the most obvious day for Ross’s pardon in hindsight. Regardless, Ross is now a free man again.
With Ross free, it would be a disservice to not explain his story and the importance of his actions.
In 2011 Ross created and operated the darknet website “Silk Road.” The Silk Road was operational until he was arrested in 2013. The Silk Road was an anonymous e-commerce marketplace, similar to Amazon and eBay, where users could sell goods and services in any capacity. Where the Silk Road was different was in its emphasis on user security and privacy. The Silk Road operated as a hidden service on the “Tor Network,” a network that enabled users to hide their IP addresses and location and operate on the internet with more privacy. Bitcoin was the other privacy tool that was used and was used as the payment method. At the time, Bitcoin was little known and allowed Silk Road users to pay for goods without having to go through a third-party intermediary like a bank. Additionally, the Bitcoin wallet addresses helped users maintain a level of anonymity.
The portion of the story I have outlined above has its roots in “freedom” and the free market. On this site, users could operate without being watched by “Big Brother” and could do as they please. Ross believed in the free market and viewed the Silk Road as a free-market economic experiment. Ross also believed that “people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they wanted, so long as they weren’t hurting anyone else.”
The Silk Road website perpetuated these beliefs. The Silk Road was an embodiment of not only these beliefs but also a near-total free market. However, if you have previously heard of the Silk Road, you have undoubtedly heard of it being used for illicit activities, mainly drug purchases. These would have been the news headlines—the immoral and socially deviant side of what occurs in a truly free market environment. It is worth noting there was a banned item list on the site such as stolen items, child pornography, counterfeits, and “generally anything used to “harm or defraud” others.”
This aspect of the Silk Road offering a channel for the free market to be the free market is what led to Ross’s arrest. It’s clear to me that Ross Ulbricht was the fall guy for the individuals who used the Silk Road to purchase illegal and illicit items. His sentence paints this picture further. Before January 21st, 2025, Ross had been in prison since 2013, as a first-time offender only convicted of non-violent crimes, and faced two life sentences + 40 years without parole. Before being pardoned Ross was “condemned to die in prison for creating an anonymous e-commerce website.” Ross was only 26 years old when he created the site and was passionate about free markets and privacy. The punishment did not fit the crime of believing in the free market.
The court system failed Ross and his pardon aims to rectify his situation. The sentence Ross received implied that no second chance was possible for as long as he lived. The sentence was also dramatically different from similar cases. The average prison sentence all of the other defendants related to the Silk Road case received was six years. This included actual drug dealers, people who helped run the Silk Road, and the men behind Silk Road 2.0. Before Ross was pardoned, all of the other people who were previously sentenced were already free today. It is worth noting that after the Silk Road was taken down, Silk Road 2.0 was created and launched within weeks and quickly grew larger than the original site with sales per month. However, unlike Ross, the founder of Silk Road 2.0 was given only 64 months in prison in the UK and the co-founder, an American arrested on the same charges as Ross was released after spending only 13 days in U.S custody.
I do not believe that Ross should have been held responsible for the actions of users who used his website. I believe him being held responsible for the actions of users of his website is an infringement on free speech as the code that Ross wrote to create the website was how he demonstrated his right to free speech. How others interpreted and used the code, was not up to Ross. There is currently an ongoing legal battle with the creators of Samurai Wallet for a similar issue. They were arrested because of how users used the application they created. I believe attacking the creators of privacy-facing websites is a poor precedent to set for the future of freedom. It is important to stand up for these attacks. Ross stood for freedom and the free market, based on his sentence and the last decade-plus spent in prison, one could argue he believed in freedom and the free market to a fault.
Ross Ulbricht is respected in the Bitcoin industry because of his original stances on freedom, anonymity, the free market, and libertarian values. Ross chose Bitcoin to be the currency on the Silk Road because it is freedom money that no third party can censor. Ross saw this reality at a time when Bitcoin was a niche idea in the corners of the internet. Using Bitcoin in the early days of 2011 on a global marketplace also opened countless eyes to the reality of what was possible with Bitcoin as freedom money. No bank could come in and freeze one’s account. The only action was sending payment and waiting for the Bitcoin network to process the transaction.
As I learned more about Ross, it became clear to me that the sentences against him aimed to make him an example. An example that implied, “If you go against the banks and the establishments who control money” you will lose. Over a decade since he was arrested, it’s clear to me the tables have turned. The people who have adopted Bitcoin and continue to use and hold it as “freedom money” are the people who are maintaining control of their future and their right to transact. Ross saw this reality in 2011, and I believe this reality is rapidly coming to light in today’s world.
Freedom wins again.
Ross is free at last.
Stack SATs.
In his speech at the 2024 Bitcoin Conference, President Trump said he would pardon Ross on day one in office. However, day one was January 20th and the pardon did not come. Day two was when the pardon came. The 21st, a number synonymous with Bitcoin because of the 21 million fixed supply of Bitcoin, does seem to be the most obvious day for Ross’s pardon in hindsight. Regardless, Ross is now a free man again.
With Ross free, it would be a disservice to not explain his story and the importance of his actions.
In 2011 Ross created and operated the darknet website “Silk Road.” The Silk Road was operational until he was arrested in 2013. The Silk Road was an anonymous e-commerce marketplace, similar to Amazon and eBay, where users could sell goods and services in any capacity. Where the Silk Road was different was in its emphasis on user security and privacy. The Silk Road operated as a hidden service on the “Tor Network,” a network that enabled users to hide their IP addresses and location and operate on the internet with more privacy. Bitcoin was the other privacy tool that was used and was used as the payment method. At the time, Bitcoin was little known and allowed Silk Road users to pay for goods without having to go through a third-party intermediary like a bank. Additionally, the Bitcoin wallet addresses helped users maintain a level of anonymity.
The portion of the story I have outlined above has its roots in “freedom” and the free market. On this site, users could operate without being watched by “Big Brother” and could do as they please. Ross believed in the free market and viewed the Silk Road as a free-market economic experiment. Ross also believed that “people should have the right to buy and sell whatever they wanted, so long as they weren’t hurting anyone else.”
The Silk Road website perpetuated these beliefs. The Silk Road was an embodiment of not only these beliefs but also a near-total free market. However, if you have previously heard of the Silk Road, you have undoubtedly heard of it being used for illicit activities, mainly drug purchases. These would have been the news headlines—the immoral and socially deviant side of what occurs in a truly free market environment. It is worth noting there was a banned item list on the site such as stolen items, child pornography, counterfeits, and “generally anything used to “harm or defraud” others.”
This aspect of the Silk Road offering a channel for the free market to be the free market is what led to Ross’s arrest. It’s clear to me that Ross Ulbricht was the fall guy for the individuals who used the Silk Road to purchase illegal and illicit items. His sentence paints this picture further. Before January 21st, 2025, Ross had been in prison since 2013, as a first-time offender only convicted of non-violent crimes, and faced two life sentences + 40 years without parole. Before being pardoned Ross was “condemned to die in prison for creating an anonymous e-commerce website.” Ross was only 26 years old when he created the site and was passionate about free markets and privacy. The punishment did not fit the crime of believing in the free market.
The court system failed Ross and his pardon aims to rectify his situation. The sentence Ross received implied that no second chance was possible for as long as he lived. The sentence was also dramatically different from similar cases. The average prison sentence all of the other defendants related to the Silk Road case received was six years. This included actual drug dealers, people who helped run the Silk Road, and the men behind Silk Road 2.0. Before Ross was pardoned, all of the other people who were previously sentenced were already free today. It is worth noting that after the Silk Road was taken down, Silk Road 2.0 was created and launched within weeks and quickly grew larger than the original site with sales per month. However, unlike Ross, the founder of Silk Road 2.0 was given only 64 months in prison in the UK and the co-founder, an American arrested on the same charges as Ross was released after spending only 13 days in U.S custody.
I do not believe that Ross should have been held responsible for the actions of users who used his website. I believe him being held responsible for the actions of users of his website is an infringement on free speech as the code that Ross wrote to create the website was how he demonstrated his right to free speech. How others interpreted and used the code, was not up to Ross. There is currently an ongoing legal battle with the creators of Samurai Wallet for a similar issue. They were arrested because of how users used the application they created. I believe attacking the creators of privacy-facing websites is a poor precedent to set for the future of freedom. It is important to stand up for these attacks. Ross stood for freedom and the free market, based on his sentence and the last decade-plus spent in prison, one could argue he believed in freedom and the free market to a fault.
Ross Ulbricht is respected in the Bitcoin industry because of his original stances on freedom, anonymity, the free market, and libertarian values. Ross chose Bitcoin to be the currency on the Silk Road because it is freedom money that no third party can censor. Ross saw this reality at a time when Bitcoin was a niche idea in the corners of the internet. Using Bitcoin in the early days of 2011 on a global marketplace also opened countless eyes to the reality of what was possible with Bitcoin as freedom money. No bank could come in and freeze one’s account. The only action was sending payment and waiting for the Bitcoin network to process the transaction.
As I learned more about Ross, it became clear to me that the sentences against him aimed to make him an example. An example that implied, “If you go against the banks and the establishments who control money” you will lose. Over a decade since he was arrested, it’s clear to me the tables have turned. The people who have adopted Bitcoin and continue to use and hold it as “freedom money” are the people who are maintaining control of their future and their right to transact. Ross saw this reality in 2011, and I believe this reality is rapidly coming to light in today’s world.
Freedom wins again.
Ross is free at last.
Stack SATs.