Making good on a campaign promise to Libertarians, President Donald Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015. Ulbricht is the creator of Silk Road, a website that was termed the “most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace” on the internet and became best-known for sales of illicit drugs.
Silk Road allowed anonymous transactions through cryptocurrency and is a cornerstone in Bitcoin’s early life story. His life sentence was seen as a politically motivated punishment by some – many of whom are Libertarians – making the pardon a significant milestone for advocates of digital privacy and autonomy.
There’s no doubt that Silk Road was innovative at the time. It was accessible only through the anonymizing Tor network, which disguised users’ IP addresses and led to its being termed the first dark web marketplace. It allowed users to buy and sell merchandise using cryptocurrency, letting them make purchases without, at least at the beginning, detection by law enforcement.
According to most reports, the site facilitated more than 1.5 million transactions, including sales of heroin, cocaine and other illicit substances and generated over $200 million in revenue. At Ulbricht’s sentencing, a judge called him “the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug-trafficking enterprise.”
At the time of Silk Road, cryptocurrencies were largely unregulated. Since then, cryptocurrencies have become more mainstream, but they still remain a target for illicit activities, including money laundering, ransomware payments, and terrorist financing.
Why does the pardon matter?
This pardon is making waves in both the crypto and legal worlds for a number of reasons, chief among them crypto’s role in Silk Road, specifically that it was one of the first times Bitcoin was used in illegal transactions. The question now becomes what is cryptocurrency’s current relationship with regulation – and perhaps more significantly, with crime.
This pardon is being heralded by Libertarians and crypto bros who see the Silk Road case as a free-market issue, mainly that the government has no business regulating cryptocurrencies. At the same time, those critical of the pardon believe this will undermine efforts to fight illegal online marketplaces.
This will likely fuel the debate on the regulation of cryptocurrencies and the ever precarious balance between maintaining freedom and providing security. Will the result in changes in how courts approach digital platforms, especially those related to illegal activities?
It’s clear this pardon has significance for crypto by raising real questions about the legal consequences for innovators in tech and the role of cryptocurrencies in our day to day lives.
Watch this space to see how crypto and compliance figure out their relationship.
And download our guide: The state of cryptocurrency compliance in 2025.
