So do I get this right? Besides the ~175k BTC they seized back in 2013, they seized ~70k more a few months ago? That's just insane honestly..
I would say that double life sentence for creating a website where people can trade freely and privately is just too harsh, but someone wanted to present Ross worse than Hitler.
Silk Road was one of the key points of getting Bitcoin widely adopted. Not because you can commit crimes using it, but because the governments can't censor it.
Back then, BTC was simply one of the biggest enemies of governments, so I suppose the reason they gave Ross this harsh sentence is because they wanted to show us all that,
"Hey, wanna use a cryptocurrency against slavery and censorship? We're gonna punish you really well!".
There are some suspected stuff about Ross such as him allegedly
requesting a hitman to murder a vendor for $500k. Other websites mention that he
requested 6 murders. However, none of the charges were apparently linked to the murder requests so I don't know what to say about that...
I agree. His sentence
just for creating the Bitcoin market is more than exaggerated. This is what happens when you try to become the Surveillance, control-hungry State's enemy.. they portray you as the worst and most dangerous human on Earth..