The possibilities of Ross Ulbricht, the convicted founding father of the darknet market web site Silk Highway, being pardoned by United States President Donald Trump throughout his first week in workplace simply went up by greater than 16%.
Knowledge on the decentralized betting platform Polymarket shows Ulbricht has a 93% likelihood of leaving jail throughout the subsequent few weeks.
How Ulbricht Ended Up in Jail
The surge within the odds of Trump pardoning Ulbricht got here shortly after the American Billionaire Elon Musk commented on an X put up about inserting the Silk Highway founder’s pardon on the high of the president’s government order stack.
“Ross will probably be freed too,” Musk said, implying that Ulbricht would possible be pardoned earlier than later.
In 2013, U.S. authorities arrested Ulbricht on a number of costs, together with operating Silk Highway, which facilitated intercourse trafficking and the sale of unlawful medicine utilizing bitcoin (BTC), cash laundering, drug trafficking, and pc hacking. Actions on Silk Highway led to the platform processing greater than $1 billion in transactions.
After a two-year authorized battle, a U.S. federal courtroom sentenced Ulbricht to 2 life phrases plus 40 years with out the opportunity of parole. The sentencing sparked controversy within the crypto trade, with many arguing that it was excessively harsh, whereas others insist that the actions on Silk Highway benefit the extent of punishment given to Ulbricht.
As of 2025, Ulbricht had spent greater than a decade in jail, with authorities seizing over $1 billion in BTC from Silk Highway’s treasury. The crypto neighborhood and over 250 organizations have advocated for Ulbricht’s launch. Throughout his marketing campaign, President Donald Trump additionally promised to pardon the Silk Highway founder as soon as he assumed workplace.
Trump’s Guarantees
A couple of month to the tip of his former tenure because the U.S. president, Trump reportedly considered pardoning Ulbricht. This was in 2020, and the Silk Highway creator had spent about seven years behind bars. Sadly, Trump skipped Ulbricht whereas issuing pardons to different convicts, together with his former marketing campaign advisor Steve Bannon and ex-Ripple board member Ken Kurson.
Because the starting of 2024, Trump has proven help for Ulbricht, making a number of vows to avoid wasting the convict and commute his sentence as quickly as he takes workplace. With the president being inaugurated lower than 24 hours earlier than this report, how shortly Ulbricht will probably be pardoned stays to be seen.
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