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Pardon him. This is my own opinion, however, I reckon the investigation on Ross Ulbricht was unfair, biased and the agents behind this were corrupt. It would not be shocking if a new investigation found planted evidences from the previous investigation.



U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly weighing whether he should give the jailed founder of the defunct dark web marketplace Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, a pardon.

According to a report by the Daily Beast on Tuesday, the White House counsel’s office is reviewing Ulbricht’s case documents.

The Daily Beast cites three sources familiar with the matter claiming the president has been reviewing cases ahead of his next round of pardons and commutations before the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

Read in full https://www.coindesk.com/ulbricht-silk-road-trump-pardon

I sure hope it goes through. Dude's facing double life sentence + 40 years for creating a freakin platform, and is facing a far far worse sentence than literally murderers and pedophiles.

Hopefully Julian Assange and Edward Snowden also has a chance.

It's hard to say how severe his crimes were, given that we won't be able to tell whether the evidence were fabricated. I believe there were incriminating evidence in the laptop with the data that was copied. 

Actively facilitating illicit trades is definitely a pretty severe offence. I believe that he wasn't charged on the basis of hiring hitman but there was evidences of this happening. I don't think that the punishment should be that severe but I definitely think that the latter charges should be reconsidered.

Well it is blatantly obvious he helped many break the law.
You can all pretend he didn't but he obviously did.

Proving that in court - well that's probably not easy - but alas they busted him anyway.

Only issue, as far as I understood, was that some of the FBI were corrupt also, and should have ended up in a cell with him :P

If he gets out and still has some of that BTC he made running silk road, well then I guess, good on him :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you meant he "helped many break the law" by creating a unrestricted platform that people used to buy weapons/chemicals/drugs/etc, then I definitely don't think it's a good argument.

He could've made hundreds of millions; not sure about you, but I personally wouldn't be happy sacrificing and wasting 5 years(and counting) of my early 30s just for money.

Ross is responsible for drug trafficking online and the reason that he should be pardon is because the cops that arrested him are corrupt? Kind of BS to consider that will be the case, he was caught in a public library and it was a sting operation not to mention that he hired a hitman to eliminate someone that might point out his true identity at that time. Ross deserves the punishment although I can't deny the fact that he spearheaded a market model that will be followed and studied by many in the coming years.

So..

Knife companies are responsible for people getting stabbed?
Computer hardware companies, ISPs, and other computer/internet-related companies are responsible for people getting scammed online?
Chocolate companies are responsible for people getting diabetes?

Not really sure how true/false those accusations are, but those charges were dropped.

What is that analogy? The dude sells illicit drugs and you compare him to legal entities, the knifes are just objects, it is up to the people who are using it on what they have to do with it. Computer hardware companies are not responsible, you are putting the blame on a provider, it is the people that uses those hardware that should be responsible for their action. Chocolate is not the reason for diabetes, it is the sugar. If your main business model is to provide illegal substances, how can it be reasonable to compare it with legal businesses. We might not be on the same page here so sorry.

Point me to a source where it's proven that Ross Ulbricht actually sold drugs himself. Because as far as I know, he only created the platform where people sold drugs(the tool), not necessarily him selling the drugs himself; hence the knife/computer/chocolate indirect-effect analogy. I'm totally fine being wrong here.

"Ulbricht, a first-time offender, was not convicted of actually selling illegal drugs and other items himself, but of creating and operating a site where others did." https://www.investopedia.com/tech/ross-ulbricht-dark-net-pirate/

He still should be punished because he created the platform, isn't that still a offense because that is still in a way distribution of narcotics, although he is not technically selling, he is paving a way for traffickers to market their product. I might be wrong with my verbiage back there. The legal business being responsible for crimes committed on them is not a very good analogy to be honest because it is on the polar opposites of the spectrum in my opinion.

Pardon me,but maintaining an illegal marketplace for drugs,weapons,carding and all the illegal stuff you could imagine is as worse as killing somebody or conducting sexual crimes.
This guy deserves to be in prison for life(if he is proven to be the real owner and creator of Silk Road).
Having an online platform for selling drugs basically makes this guy a drug dealer.He is as horrible as all the gangsters(dealers,murderers,robbers,pimps) on the streets.
Putting Ross Ulbricht in the same group as Assange and Snowden is just ridiculous.Assange and Snowden are fighters for our freedom and our personal privacy.They didn't sell drugs,weapons or stolen bank account info.

What should be given to him is a "Nobel Peace Prize for Economic Sciences" for the breakthrough he developed in finding free market inefficiencies, and making them more efficient/have less friction. NOT give him a double life sentence. OR, give him a slap on the wrist.

I would be very surprised if Trump pardons him. What's in it for him apart from headaches when the media inevitably crucify him for releasing a so-called drug King-pin? Trump will probably be in a lot of various legal troubles when he leaves office and no more diplomatic immunity so he probably doesn't want any more legal issues. What's the deal with presidential pardons anyway? Can they literally pardon anyone? Mass murderers? El Chapo if he wanted? Can the pardoned people be re-arrested or re-charged for the same crimes at any point?

I don't think it's fair that Ross in prison for literal life and seems very unjust but the fact that he very likely tried to have someone assassinated doesn't sit right with me. I think the punishment for that should be severe, maybe even the same as murder, but sometimes all that gets you is a few years. I remember a while ago the lead singer of As I Lay Dying was caught trying to have his wife murdered by an undercover police office but he got out of prison within 4 years which is pretty crazy. I wonder if Ross has somehow offered some of his bitcoins to people for help? The wealth he's potentially sitting on might get a few people to help him.


Unjust laws should be broken. Drugs should be legal. Government should leave people alone on that front.


Well there was likely a lot of entrapment going on, which is illegal. If I recal correctly it was probably one of the undercover cops that suggested they hire someone to take out the enemy, which if so is 100% entrapment. Still, he shouldn't have gone along with it but the murder for hire charge wasn't used in court and probably would have been thrown out had they tried to go ahead with it. Who knows what other shenigans the undercover police did. Nothing they were involved with should have been allowed to be presented in court though.


Don't be silly. How is any of that the same as rape and murder? It sold drugs only and none of the other stuff. Do you think people should be arrested for selling cigarettes and alcohol? Are you a criminal if you've taken those substances? Are people who sell cigarettes and alcohol criminals too?


Ross was actually the first person to sell drugs on the platform, but it was just magic mushrooms to try get people using the site as a drugs marketplace.

this is where knife manufacturers and chocolate companies are very careful about how/where they promote their platform/product.

EG knife companies dont advertise themselves as 'wife stabbers'
chocolate companies dont advertise their products as 'the only main meal kids need'

when a platform is advertising itself as a place to get illicit drugs. they cannot plead ignorant to what goes on after sales occur.

yep if a chocolate company said. stop eating balanced diet and only eat our stuff.. then yes chocolate companies get in trouble. if they lie about the content of their products.(like cigarette companies did) they get in trouble

I hope they all rot in jail. All three of them knowing broke the laws and worse yet, knowingly helped others do the same.
Screw 'em!

Are you going to say the same about Aaron Swartz as well? Yes. They broke the law, because laws are created by politicians and they don't ensure that the laws are fair. Now what is Snowden's fault? He revealed information on various global surveillance programs, which were run without the required permission from the respective countries. Rather than trying to find out information which would prevent terrorist attacks and similar incidents, the FBI was using these surveillance programs for their own narrow benefits. If someone should be jailed for this, then those who are behind these surveillance programs deserves it more than anyone else.

why is trump pardoning people that the corrupt democrats would love to have jailed, in in order to create their corrupt communist dreamworld

there is martial law to declare and a massive leftlibertarian and left authoritarian swamp to be drained

trump needs to hurry on than and not allow biden to destroy america

If memory serves me correctly, he grew and sold Mushrooms on the Silk Road platform in its very early days. It is difficult to say if this continued as it would have been trivial for him to create a sock puppet seller account.

He was not tried for the selling of Mushrooms, but I believe there is evidence he did so.

There is also the issue of the murder for hire plots that Ulbright allegedly paid for. Again, he wasn’t tried for this, and there may be entrapment issues with one of the plots, but it is a reason why I would be hesitant to pardon him.

Kinda missing the part that he created a marketplace to sell illegal drugs on it.

Do I think a marketplace like this is much safer then buying drugs from random people? Yes. But both of these are illegal so it's not like we should just ignore that. But yes, he did have a longer sentence then people who literally have killed other humans. Pretty crazy to think how our justice system is setup.

I think Snowden and Assange have a bit of a better chance -- I think Trump will be able to spin this into the whole 'THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ABUSED THEIR POWERS AND THESE GREAT PATRIOTS EXPOSED IT. NEVER AGAIN WILL SOMEONE BE TREATED AS HORRIBLE AS ME BY THE DEEP STATE'

Something along those lines.

But onto the point about Ulbricht -- There's been rumors that he has some powerful backers in the Trump admin which may give him that chance. Unsure how they're going to sell this in regards to the PR side of things, but we'll see.