Last September, I spent an evening at a meetup near Atlanta titled “Bitcoin Enters the Political Mainstream.” This was the first time the group of mostly white, mostly male, mostly bearded thirty- and forty-year-olds had come together to focus their attention on policy Of cryptocurrencies – which are suddenly, somewhat shockingly, front and centre. Donald Trump, who called bitcoin a “scam” in 2021, recently chaired a bitcoin conference and made ads saying things like “You know, they call me the crypto president.” Near the door to the Atlanta event, held in the courtyard of the hangar, sat a pile of Bitcoin Magazines With the face of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the cover. Joey, a theater director in attendance, explained Kennedy’s role in the recent events: “When Kennedy came in — a Bitcoin supporter — Trump said, ‘Oh, shit, I’m going to start losing people to Bitcoin.’ So he converted.” Joey shrugged. “We’ll take it.”
The crypto public, long the butt of jokes, was thrilled by the sudden shift in status — even if some questioned the validity or continuity of Trump’s support. Finally, it was taken seriously by at least one party. The shirts showed their enthusiasm by using language and inside jokes, which required little explanation to the uninitiated: “bachelor, taken, Hoodling“,” Joey’s shirt read. There were boxes next to each word;Hoodling“It has been checked. ((Hodel(An abbreviation for “hold on for dear life,” which refers to the crazy volatility of cryptocurrencies.) Get it? I made the rounds, as the group of about thirty gathered, drinking beer and eating barbecue. I asked why most of them seemed so excited about Trump. And there he was. The growing number of crypto enthusiasts like Kennedy; his stated desire to adopt a crypto-friendly policy and also, in particular, his promise to release a forty-year-old man from prison: Ross Ulbricht.
Ulbricht was pardoned last week, at the conclusion of the second day of Trump’s presidency, a day after Trump pardoned nearly fifteen hundred people who participated in the January 6th insurrection. The delay caused concern among some of Ulbricht’s aides. “People were posting in our chat saying, ‘Well, there’s only an hour and a half left of day one. “I hope that happens.” He continued: “I think it was a smart move to pardon Ross on his own, after Trump issued a mass pardon. It kind of gives this gesture more oomph.
In 2011, Ulbricht, an Eagle Scout from Austin, Texas, founded Silk Road, an online black market that existed until his arrest in 2013, for crimes related to drug trafficking, money laundering, and computer hacking. According to the authorities, more than one million transactions were conducted on the Silk Road, outside the regulatory scope of the government. Generate more than Two hundred million dollars in revenue. Drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and heroin made up a large portion of the site’s sales, from which Ulbricht apparently earned millions in commissions. The federal prosecutor said in closing arguments that Silk Road “lowered barriers to drug trafficking by enabling drug traffickers to reach customers online who they would not otherwise meet on the street.” (Prosecutors also presented evidence that Ulbricht was involved in a murder-for-hire plot, but the government acknowledged there was no evidence that the alleged targets were harmed, and charges were not pursued.) Dark Web nickname Dread Pirate Roberts – a reference to a changeling character in “The Princess Bride” –receive Two life sentences without the possibility of parole.
What made Ulbricht a crypto hero, ultimately, was that Silk Road demonstrated one of the first clear use cases for Bitcoin: all transactions on the dark web site were made using the then-nascent cryptocurrency, which, thanks to the pseudonymous addresses available at its disposal. Buyer and seller, provided a high degree of coverage. Naturally, this use case may not have been the ideal one for a new currency that would want to be seen as legitimate. “For better or worse, the Silk Road had a huge impact on Bitcoin in its early days, on public perception, and on adoption,” Clark told me. “Ross has apologized in the past because he is not sure — nor am I — whether Silk Road represents a net positive for Bitcoin.”
But Ulbricht’s liberalization remained a big issue for libertarians like Clark, who, in light of their laissez-faire philosophy, embraced a pro-crypto policy before most Republicans or Democrats. At the Libertarian National Convention last year, Trump took to the stage and announced that he would release Ulbricht if elected. This impressed the people at the meeting, many of whom described themselves to me as libertarians. I ended up having one of my longest conversations with a young man named Michael Tidwell, who was wearing…Ross is free” T-shirt. (Everyone there referred to Ulbricht by his first name, as if he were Prince or Madonna or LeBron.) Tidwell told me he had never voted in a presidential election before, unless you count his writing in “Rare Pepe” — which is a meme Coded. Personal – in 2016. “Biden and Harris could release him, but they’re not doing it,” he told me. “At least Trump says he will.”
On January 21, Trump did it. Ulbricht was declared pardoned
On social truth. This was everything Ulbricht’s supporters wanted, except perhaps for Trump’s misspelling of Ross’s last name (which was later corrected). “I just called Ross William Albright’s mother to tell her that in honor of her and the libertarian movement, which has supported me so strongly, I had the pleasure of just signing a full and unconditional pardon for her son Ross.” Trump wrote. “The scum who worked to convict him were the same lunatics who participated in arming the government against me in modern times.”
After Ulbricht was released, I contacted a few members of the Bitcoin Atlanta Meetup group, which hosted Ulbricht’s mother in 2017. “Some punishment was deserved,” Clark told me. “But not that. It’s the size of the sentence that really sets him apart. This was redemption for cruel and unusual punishment. Others in the group felt the same way. Clark posted a forward-looking message on Facebook, which he repeated to me, saying: “I’m so happy Ross is now a man Free after more than a decade in prison. I hope Ross can use his experiences and any influence he has, due to his high profile, for good in his new life as a free man. He guessed that Ulbricht would be “active” in criminal justice reform. (Ulbricht hasn’t given any interviews yet, but he has published video In his account on X, on Thursday evening, which has been viewed more than ten million times, he said, among other things, “Let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word.” Sounding emotional, Ulbricht continued, “This is an important moment for everyone everywhere who loves freedom and cares about second chances.”) Later, Clark sent me his favorite. funny In response to the pardon, a meme he had seen on Facebook: “Heartbreaking: Trump sentences man to 20 years for libertarian podcast appearance.”
One of the only outspoken anti-Trump members of the meeting group was thrilled. “The pardon of Ross is unequivocally good news,” the man, who asked to remain anonymous, told me. “I personally think the book was thrown at him for his strong anti-authoritarian and libertarian publications to make an example of him. His punishment was truly cruel and unusual.
I also spoke to a frequent attendee of the group, who formerly worked in IT, named Mel Dodd. He told me that liberals and crypto enthusiasts he knows were “thrilled” by Ulbricht’s pardon, the recent resignation of SEC Chairman and popular cryptocurrency critic Gary Gensler, and Trump’s ban on the creation of a U.S. central digital bank. currency, which would pose a threat to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. (They were clearly thrilled that the value of Bitcoin has risen by about fifty percent since Trump’s election, and is now trading at over a hundred thousand dollars.) “But there’s still a lot to go,” Dodd said. Most notably: whether Trump will create a “national stockpile” of Bitcoin, as he also indicated he would before his election. “Are they really going to do it — and really do it right — or are they going to screw it up the way politicians usually do? There is general skepticism about anything Trump or any politician does. But if they do something good, we will stand up and cheer.” Trump on Thursday issued an executive order Titled “Strengthening U.S. Leadership in Digital FinTech,” which identified, among other things, the creation of a “working group” to consider cryptocurrency policy, including the creation of a “National Digital Asset Stockpile.” Its first recommendations are expected within six months.
Trump did not wait that long to launch his dollar accountTrump The currency he launched a few days before his inauguration. The coin bears a picture of Trump at the moment of his assassination attempt last July. “Its valuation has gone up to $20 billion or something,” Clark told me. “However, his team or whoever is running this thing still controls most of it.” Affiliated with the Trump Organization It is said It owns eighty percent of the supply of the currency, which it values He reached his peak About fifteen billion dollars, and it now amounts to about half that amount, after subtracting an amountMelania currency. (Meanwhile, Trump’s teenage son, Barron, has been called a “decentralized finance visionary” at Trump’s vaguely defined cryptocurrency platform called World Liberty Financial.) “It’s kind of the classic pattern of something that doesn’t usually end well.” Clark said.
Dodd advised reserved judgment. “Trump coin will stand or fall depending on whether it is accepted or not, like everything else introduced to the American free market,” he said. “There are a lot of inferior products coming out of the American market all the time. But you can beat an embarrassing product. Money earned by the Hawk Tuah girl Her meme coin As good as any other money.”
Ross Ulbricht may actually be a millionaire again. According to Conor Grogan, director of Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, some of Ulbricht’s crypto wealth may have escaped seizure following his arrest and conviction. “I have found approximately 430 bitcoins across dozens of wallets associated with Ross Ulbricht that have not been confiscated by the US government and untouched for over 13 years,” Grogan posted to X the day after Ulbricht was pardoned. “At the time, these were probably dust wallets, but now, they’re worth a combined $47 million. Welcome back, Ross.” ♦
