Crypto industry celebrates after Trump pardons Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced a “full and unconditional pardon” of Silk Road drug marketplace founder Ross Ulbricht, who was serving two life sentences in prison for charges including narcotics distribution, money laundering, and hacking.

The move fulfilled a long-sought dream of the overlapping libertarian and crypto communities, who Trump courted on the campaign trail last year.

"I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht 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 wrote on Truth Social.

"The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump added. "He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!"

The Texas-born Silk Road creator operated the darknet marketplace under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, alluding to The Princess Bride film released in 1987. The criminal marketplace, which accepted payments in bitcoin, was operational until 2013, when the U.S. shut down the platform, arrested Ulbricht, and forced the founder to forfeit $183,961,921.

Trump had previously promised to commute Ulbricht's sentence on the first day of his presidency while addressing crowds at the Libertarian National Convention in May 2024. Although the audience had initially booed him, the reference to Ulbricht garnered chants of "Free Ross!" He followed-up on this point while headlining the main Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where he received raucous applause for pledging to free Ulbricht.

Ulbricht had been in prison for more than a decade, and news of his release, while polarizing, had significant support among crypto leaders.

In the aftermath of the announcement, David Bailey, CEO of BTC Inc., wrote on social media: "If we don’t get another damn thing from this administration beyond #FreeRoss, it was worth it. But we’re going to get so much more. Golden Age."

“Finally Ross is free,” Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether and CTO of Bitfinex, added.

Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo even proposed declaring January 21 an official bitcoin holiday known as “Ross Ulbricht Freedom Day.”

Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, however, characterized the Silk Road founder as a "criminal profiteer" in 2015: “Make no mistake: Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people," Bharara said.