Ross Ulbricht will be making his first public speech since being released from prison in early this year at the Bitcoin Conference, which takes place from May 27-29, Las Vegas.
News, Ulbricht, X April 10, 2019. Presidential pardon Donald Trump’s January announcement that he would be released from prison.
Trump pardoned Ulbricht “fully and unconditionally,” noting the support of the Libertarian Movement and calling his sentence “ridiculous.”
Ulbricht, who operated Silk Road under “Dread Pirate Roberts” from 2011 through 2013, was the owner of the marketplace.
Silk Road was only accessible through Tor, but it offered everything, from heroin to cocaine and even high-grade Cannabis, which could be purchased with Bitcoin. It is considered one of first major uses cases for cryptocurrency.
FBI estimate that Silk Road brought in $13,000,000 worth of Bitcoins as commissions.
Ulbricht was arrested in 2013 by the FBI at a San Francisco public library. The FBI also seize 173,991 Bitcoins in relation to the website, valued at over $33 Million.
Ulbricht has spent more than 11 years behind prison bars, after being found guilty in 2015 of an array of charges relating to the establishment and management of Silk Road.
The charges included narcotics, money laundering and computer hacking. Two life sentences were given to him plus a further 40 years, with no parole.
PreetBharara was the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York when he branded Ulbricht as “a criminal profiteer and drug dealer who exploited the addictions of people and contributed to at least six deaths of young people”.
Ulbricht was also accused by federal prosecutors of having paid Ulbricht hundreds of thousand dollars for the murder of people who threatened to disclose Silk Road’s workings, even though no deaths actually took place.
Charges related to the case were dropped prior to trial.
However, his case became a cause célèbre in some Libertarian and crypto circles. The Libertarian Party of the United States thanked Trump after his pardon for keeping his promise to release him.
Sebastian Sinclair is the editor
