Will Trump Pardon Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht?

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Last Updated on 19 December 2020 by CryptoTips.eu

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / [email protected]
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As late night show hosts Trevor Noah (the Daily Show), Seth Meyers (Late Night with Seth Meyers) and Jimmy Kimmel (Jimmy Kimmel Live!) have all remarked, US President Donald Trump is in a forgiving mood in his last few days before exiting the White House.

Their shows in the past weeks included jokes about how Trump would forgive his own family before any of them would be accused of crimes and how his counsel, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, could receive clemency for anything he did wrong while trying to disprove the election result.

In the past week he’s already decided to pardon Julian Assange, the infamous Wikileaks founders who was holed up in a London embassy for the past few years.

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Silk Road

One of the more striking names being flouted for a possible pardon though, it that of Ross Ulbricht, the infamous founder of the Silk Road (even NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is mentioned but given Trump’s feelings about what the latter did this sounds quite improbable).

Ulbricht is currently service two life sentences without parole for non-violent offenses in 2015. He was arrested in 2013 for having setup the darkweb marketplace Silk Road, the first network that provided Bitcoin with some real usage. Unfortunately, back then the cryptocurrency was mostly used to buy mostly illigal substances.

Many have claimed that the FBI, who shut down the site, wanted to set an example with Ulbricht’s arrest and therefore slapped a very harsh sentence on him.

Because activist Charlie Kirk, known to be an up-and-coming politician on the Republican side and a famous Trump supporter, has been demanding the release of Ulbricht for a long time, it is considered that the US President might indeed do so.

Crypto fans, who anxiously await Ross’ next Bitcoin technical analysis, cannot wait to see if the Silk Road founder will soon be a free man again. Lastly, if Ross is freed, will he reveal the whereabouts of the missing Bitcoins, some 400,000 of them.

As US attorney David L. Anderson said:

The successful prosecution of Silk Road’s founder in 2015 left open a billion-dollar question. Where did the money go?