Trump Promised to Free Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht on ‘Day One’—So What Gives?
The post Trump Promised to Free Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht on ‘Day One’—So What Gives? appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Ross Ulbricht has yet to receive commutation for his prison sentence from President Donald Trump, dashing hopes from advocates, in the immediate term, to set the notorious figure free. After spending a session in the Oval Office signing executive orders, President Trump now heads to the Commander in Chief Ball and the Liberty Ball to celebrate. It is unclear whether Trump intends to pardon or commute Ulbricht’s sentence in the coming weeks. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. “If you vote for me, on day one, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht,” Trump told attendees at the 2024 Libertarian National Convention in May last year, sparking renewed hope for the Silk Road founder’s freedom. Ulbricht, now 40, responded from prison with gratitude. “After 11 years in prison, it is hard to express how I feel at this moment,” he wrote on X at the time, thanking supporters who kept his case alive. President Trump’s promise stated he would “commute” Ulbricht’s sentence, as opposed to a pardon. A commutation reduces the severity of a criminal sentence while maintaining the underlying conviction, shortening prison time. A pardon goes further by granting complete forgiveness, effectively erasing all legal penalties, and restoring civil rights while not declaring innocence outright. Clemency, on the other hand, refers to the authority of government officials that enables both commutations and pardons. Who is Ross Ulbricht? Ulbricht, a former Eagle Scout and materials science graduate, founded the Silk Road marketplace in 2011. He was 26 at the time and built Silk Road as an underground e-commerce platform that enabled then-anonymous transactions using Bitcoin. In October 2013, he was arrested at a San Francisco public library, where FBI agents seized his laptop while it was still connected to the site’s administration…
Filed under: News - @ January 22, 2025 1:26 am