I noticed that this week an event happened that has been concerning the crypto community for several years. Donald Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht — the same programmer who in 2011 created Silk Road, the first darknet marketplace operating through the Tor network. It’s interesting to see how all this developed and why Ulbricht’s release became such a resonant event.

Ross Ulbricht grew up in Texas, studied physics and materials science, but was fascinated by ideas of freedom and privacy. Those beliefs prompted him to launch a platform where people could make transactions with Bitcoin in complete anonymity. The platform truly worked — users could trade anything they wanted while remaining invisible. This made Silk Road a symbol of the darknet and, of course, drew the attention of authorities.

In 2013, the FBI arrested Ulbricht in a San Francisco library. Agents distracted him with his girlfriend, and his partner quickly closed the laptop so he wouldn’t have time to erase the evidence. At the trial, the creator of the marketplace claimed he had built the site as an experiment and transferred control to other people. But the court didn’t believe him. He was sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years, with no possibility of parole.

The most interesting part is that the authorities confiscated 173 991 BTC. Back then, it was worth about $33.6 million. Today, those same bitcoins are valued at approximately $18 млрд. This is the largest cryptocurrency seizure in history.

Why is the crypto community so excited about Ulbricht’s release? Because many believe the punishment is unfair. For crypto enthusiasts, Ross Ulbricht is a symbol of the fight for privacy and freedom from government control. Some think that he received such a harsh sentence not only because of the drugs on the platform, but specifically because he proved Bitcoin’s viability. Silk Road became the first serious example that a digital currency can work and challenge government control.

After the pardon, one of the major crypto exchanges sent Ulbricht Bitcoins worth $111 тыс. as a show of support. The community is actively raising donations to help him get back on his feet. At the same time, in Hollywood, filming of a documentary about Ross Ulbricht was completed — it will be released this year.

This event shows how attitudes toward cryptocurrencies and privacy in the US have changed. What Ulbricht was jailed for for decades is now being seen as a symbol of the fight for freedom.