Customers on the Kalshi prediction market now place Silk Street founder Ross Ulbricht’s odds of being pardoned by President-elect Donald Trump within the first 100 days of assuming workplace at 79%.
The incoming President promised to free Ulbricht in a speech to the Libertarian Celebration’s Nationwide Conference on Could 25, 2024. President-elect Trump instructed the viewers:
“In the event you vote for me, on day one, I’ll commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served. He has already served 11 years. We’re going to get him house.”
Trump reiterated the promise on the 2024 Bitcoin convention in July 2024. Releasing Ulbricht from jail has been a significant advocacy situation for the crypto group — notably for Bitcoiners, who share the libertarian ethos.
Ulbricht’s odds of receiving a pardon from President Trump. Supply: Kalshi
Associated: Polymarket users bet Biden more likely to pardon SBF than Ross Ulbricht
The arrest and trial of Ross Ulbricht
Ulbricht based the Silk Street — a darkish internet market for contraband items and providers — in 2011 beneath the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts.”
Following a 2-year investigation into the net black market, US legislation enforcement officers arrested Ulbricht in October 2013, shuttered {the marketplace}, and seized roughly 174,000 Bitcoin.
Legislation enforcement officers additionally seized the Silk Street founder’s digital gadgets, together with a laptop computer and exterior arduous drives, which have been later used as proof in his trial.
US authorities charged the Silk Street founder with aiding and abetting the distribution of medication, operating a felony enterprise, a pc hacking conspiracy, identification fraud, and a cash laundering conspiracy.
In February 2014, Ulbricht appeared earlier than a Manhattan courtroom and pleaded not guilty on all fees. The next 12 months, the Silk Street founder was discovered guilty on all charges.
On Could 29, 2015, the Silk Street founder was sentenced to life in prison after asking for leniency from Choose Katherine Forrest of Manhattan’s Southern District of New York.
The Silk Street founder just lately wrote that he trusted President-elect Trump to honor his promise of commuting the life sentence.
“After eleven-plus years in darkness, I can lastly see the sunshine of freedom on the finish of the tunnel. Thanks a lot, Donald Trump,” Ulbricht wrote on November 12, 2024.
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