The founder of the Silk Road was pardoned, but it was just a political deal for Trump.

Author: Zuo Ye Wai Bo Shan

People with mental disorders inside and outside the prison

At the beginning of Trump’s presidency, Musk hinted in a tweet that the new president would pardon Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road, or ‘Dread Pirate Roberts.’ Let’s briefly mention his glorious past. In 2011, Ross founded the dark web e-commerce platform Silk Road, allowing people to freely buy and sell various drugs including marijuana and heroin, making a profit of over 170,000 bitcoins.

And Ross Ulbricht himself has been sentenced to life imprisonment. As of 2025, he has been in prison for 11 years, or more precisely, 4125 days, and he has reached the age of forty.

In theory, this matter was originally just an everyday occurrence between the police and drug dealers, but because it involves Bitcoin and Ross Ulbricht, things have gradually become absurd:

Ross uses Bitcoin and e-commerce platforms to counteract fiat currency and the Federal Reserve, not subjectively for profit, because the price of Bitcoin at that time was very low. Under his ‘normative’ operation, both buyers and sellers need to operate with integrity, guarantee quality, and to a certain extent shape a safer business model than street sales, protecting human rights and practicing the principles of a free market.

Ross himself is a so-called “libertarian”, a staunch believer in Hayek and others. He believes that everyone has the right to choose their own actions and be responsible for them, which in essence does not harm others.

So, the story gradually took a bizarre turn after the ‘drug dealer’s arrest’. After being convicted in 2015, his wife and parents took action and joined forces with the third-largest party in the United States, the Libertarian Party, also known as the Libertarian Party, to launch the Free Ross movement, hoping to reduce his sentence or grant him a pardon.

Under the continued efforts of the movement, many liberal political figures have expressed their support, and even Ross himself has conveyed his thoughts and articles through his wife. The X account, operated by his wife, has over 230,000 fans and 600,000 signatures requesting his pardon.

As the saying goes, “major cases are about politics, medium cases are about influence, and only minor cases are about the law.” Ross’s arrest and conviction are legal actions, the Free Ross movement is about influence, and next comes political action, and all of America’s political core is about elections.

From then on, he became associated with Trump, because Ross has become one of the core issues for Libertarian Party voters. Although the United States is a contest between the Democratic and Republican parties for the presidency, the Libertarian Party also has over 600,000 votes. In a state where the two major parties in the United States are very close in terms of scores, every vote is extremely precious.

Therefore, there is Trump’s support for strict drug control, but it does not prevent the contrasting statement that ‘he is a liberal’. In May 2024, Trump made his first statement that he would pardon Ross Ulbricht on the day of his election, which he boasted about at the Libertarian National Convention.

There is an episode to this. The anti-vaccine, Trump-nominated, Kennedy family’s Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., who was originally from the Libertarian Party, was eliminated in the presidential primary election within the party, which sowed the seeds for his defection to Trump.

So, Trump’s pardon of Ross Ulbricht is purely a political move. Based on his own attitude towards drugs, he is unlikely to have much interest in ‘libertarianism.’ Whether he will fulfill his promise depends on whether Musk’s flattery can be effective, after all, he is a true libertarian.

Libertarianism

As mentioned earlier, Ross himself is in prison, but his heart is in the circle. He has expressed his thoughts in various ways, but one thing is that he has never ‘pleaded guilty’, that is, he is still a so-called libertarian.

In view of this, we must clarify what kind of liberalism this is. If divided according to the classic schools, liberalism can be roughly divided into three major categories: classical liberalism, neo-liberalism, and social liberalism. This is not to say that there are no other branches, but these three are the most typical and popular.

Classical liberalism, represented by the Enlightenment leader Rousseau, was mainly anti-feudal and anti-monarch, emphasizing the importance of individual freedom. On the other hand, neoliberalism, vigorously promoted by the United States in the later stages of the Cold War, emphasizes small government and free market. For example, President Reagan, idolized by Trump, used this to overthrow the ideology of the Soviet Union.

As for social liberalism, it is more like a variant of left-wing political thought combined with Keynesian economics, emphasizing welfare and equality, and is relatively marginal in the current political ecology of Europe and America.

Ross Ulbricht, on the other hand, believes in libertarianism, which is even more heavyweight, and can even be called absolute liberalism, the core of which is that everyone has the right to do everything that does not harm others, and can act completely according to his own will, including selling his body and a part of his body.

So according to the principles of libertarianism, Ross Ulbricht’s actions completely lack the element of coercing others, and can even be said to be helping others to achieve their own free will.

So Vitalik will also support Ross Ulbricht, because he also agrees that everyone has the freedom to profit from selling their own bodies;

So Musk also supports Ross Ulbricht, after all, for brain implants and biological experiments, running an online store is not really considered a “crime”.

However, it should be noted that Trump did not promise to “pardon” Ross Ulbricht, and some form of commutation is actually a fulfillment of his promise, and at the moment when the former US president abused his amnesty power, Trump will not encounter great resistance to pardoning a non-political figure, depending on whether he cares about the Liberal Party and its supporters.

Conclusion

If one looks at it, Trump’s pardon of the founder of the Silk Road may give the impression of reconciling with criminals, but in fact, it is just a boring vote game. Even when Trump called himself a liberal, the attending members of the Libertarian Party did not believe him and burst into laughter.

In short, the pardon of Ross Ulbricht by Trump has become a thousand-faced Pandora’s box. Bitcoin enthusiasts will think Trump supports Bitcoin because of this, and libertarians will think Trump supports liberalism because of this.

Everyone hopes to see the content they like from it, and freedom of choice is indeed the underlying theory of libertarians. Under the ‘abuse’ of the former president’s pardon power, the authority of the judiciary has been undermined. Whether Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht or not, it cannot become a huge boost for Bitcoin or libertarians.