Silk Road founder Ulbricht makes first major public appearance since release

Ross Ulbricht made his first major public appearance this week, during the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas. The founder of the legendary Silk Road website, where you could buy all kinds of (mostly illegal) stuff with Bitcoin, was released in January of this year thanks to a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump.

Ross admitted that it feels very good to be free again and spoke in awe of Bitcoin and crypto. Investors are already looking forward to his Bitcoin analysis.

Ten years ago to the day, I was sentenced to die in prison. Instead I gave my first public speech in freedom.

I wore a red tie as an homage to @realDonaldTrump, the man who saved my life. pic.twitter.com/WWp0vL3C9T

— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) May 30, 2025

Sentence

For those who don’t know him, Ulbricht is a 41-year-old programmer who founded the darknet marketplace Silk Road in 2011. There you could buy almost all drugs and other illegal materials in the farthest corners of the internet.
Payments were made in Bitcoin. The FBI shut down Silk Road (named after the historical trade route between Asia and Europe) and arrested Ulbricht in 2013. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since he was one of the first to create a use case for Bitcoin, he still garners a lot of respect in the crypto world.

This is Ross Ulbricht, once the biggest $BTC holder in the world.

He had 144,000 $BTC worth $15B, but one mistake took it all away.

After 12 years in prison, he’s now selling personal items just to make ends meet.

Here’s one of the wildest stories in crypto history 👇🧵 pic.twitter.com/gXGlF0y12j

— 0xNobler (@CryptoNobler) May 28, 2025

Crypto fans generally agreed that Ulbricht’s sentence was too severe for the crime he had committed. Even though the website was mainly used to sell drugs and other illegal substances, the impression was given that the traditional financial world wanted to send a signal that websites where payment was not required with their products (bank cards or accounts) should not be allowed to operate.

Donald Trump promised to release Ulbricht during his election campaign last year and kept his word. Before his arrest, Ulbricht owned around 144,000 Bitcoins, which would be worth 15 billion dollars in today’s money. The US government seized everything and sold most of it.