Technically, Donald Trump broke his marketing campaign promise by not liberating Silk Street founder Ross Ulbricht on day one in every of his presidency. (No, inauguration day shouldn’t be “day zero.”) However as I defined in my earlier Take, I wasn’t anticipating a literal first day pardon anyhow. Even day two exceeds my expectations. Trump delivered, and I’m very glad he did.
Once I first heard about Silk Street in early 2013, I used to be instantly intrigued by the idea of shopping for and promoting medicine anonymously on-line. To this present day, I believe darknet markets are the very best middleman step earlier than the battle on medicine is ended: It removes sellers from avenue corners whereas offering customers some stage of high quality assurance via a public score system.
Discovering Silk Street was additionally how I first realized about Bitcoin. I began writing concerning the digital forex just a few months later, and am nonetheless at it right now. In a means, I owe my profession to Ulbricht.
That Ulbricht was sentenced to spend the remainder of his life in jail was a miscarriage of justice in my opinion. Even in case you consider he’s responsible of the whole lot he’s been convicted of (all non-violent crimes), over a decade behind bars must be lengthy sufficient.
To make sure, I don’t consider Trump really cares about Ulbricht; he might have freed him throughout his first time period if that was the case. And Trump definitely has no intent of ending the battle on medicine; if something, he’s about to escalate it by designating cartels to be terrorist organizations and imposing the dying penalty on drug sellers. Trump promised to pardon Ulbricht as a result of that may profit him politically — however to his credit score, he stored his phrase.
Ross is lastly free. Effectively carried out President Trump, and everybody else who helped make this occur.
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are totally the creator’s and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
