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 previous 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.
After I first heard about Silk Street in early 2013, I used to be instantly intrigued by the idea of shopping for and promoting medication anonymously on-line. To today, I believe darknet markets are the perfect middleman step earlier than the warfare on medication is ended: It removes sellers from road corners whereas offering customers some degree of high quality assurance by a public ranking system.
Discovering Silk Street was additionally how I first realized about Bitcoin. I began writing concerning the digital foreign money just a few months later, and am nonetheless at it at present. 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 if you happen to imagine he’s responsible of every little thing he’s been convicted of (all non-violent crimes), over a decade behind bars needs to be lengthy sufficient.
To make certain, I don’t imagine Trump really cares about Ulbricht; he may have freed him throughout his first time period if that was the case. And Trump definitely has no intent of ending the warfare on medication; if something, he’s about to escalate it by designating cartels to be terrorist organizations and imposing the death penalty on drug dealers. Trump promised to pardon Ulbricht as a result of that might profit him politically — however to his credit score, he saved his phrase.
Ross is lastly free. Nicely performed President Trump, and everybody else who helped make this occur.
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are solely the writer’s and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
