It was an ordinary afternoon in the San Francisco City Library on October 1, 2013. Suddenly, a loud argument breaks out between two men. While everyone present is distracted, a third man approaches a young library visitor on his laptop. Seconds later, Ross Ulbricht is arrested and his laptop, which is still switched on, is confiscated. What the other library visitors don't know: They have just witnessed how the FBI arrested the operator of what was then the world's largest online trading platform on the Darknet.
Ross Ulbricht was born on March 27, 1984 in Austin, Texas. After completing his engineering degree in Pennsylvania in 2009, he traveled to various parts of the world. The young graduate knew early on that an ordinary salaried job would not be in line with his life goal.
During this time, Ulbricht worked intensively on the Austrian School of National Economy, an economic school of thought that focuses on individual freedom and free markets. “I want to use economic theory as a means to eliminate the use of coercion and violence in humanity,” he wrote at the time.
In 2011, Ulbricht combined two emerging technologies: the Tor network, a tool for anonymity on the Internet, and Bitcoin, a still very unknown global digital payment network that works without the presence of a third party. The result was Silk Road, an online marketplace on the darknet. Ulbricht, who acted under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts,” set clear limits: no weapons, no child pornography, no falsified documents. And this is how the platform developed into the largest digital marketplace for illegal substances.
This is where his libertarian ideas become clear: According to Ulbricht's conviction, everyone should have the right to act freely as long as no one is threatened or inflicted on violence. For him, trade between consenting adults was a non-violent act that required no government regulation. Silk Road was the technical implementation of this philosophy.
From 2011 to 2013, Silk Road had sales of around 1.2 billion US dollars. On every transaction, the platform received a commission of up to 10%.
Although Silk Road only acted as an intermediary platform and Ulbricht himself did not sell any illegal goods, it quickly became the target of the authorities. The FBI classified the company as criminal and launched one of the biggest darknet investigations to date. IRS Special Agent Gary Alford finally made the decisive breakthrough: During a Google search for “Silk Road.onion,” he came across an early Bitcoin forum entry in which a user called “altoid” promoted the new platform. In a later post, the same user looked for a Bitcoin expert and left an email address for this: rossulbricht@gmail.com. This discovery ultimately led to the identification and arrest of Ross Ulbricht.
The list of charges was extensive: money laundering, computer hacking, and running a criminal organization. There were also serious allegations, such as the alleged commission of contract killings, but these were never brought to trial.
However, the investigation was characterized by inconsistencies right from the start. The methods used by investigators to locate the platform's server in Iceland raised constitutional issues. Whistleblower Edward Snowden later suspected that the NSA was involved. In addition, two FBI agents involved in the investigation were later convicted themselves of corruption and embezzlement of Bitcoin.
Following his arrest, Ulbricht was sentenced to double life in prison plus 40 years in 2015. He spent his time in various high-security prisons, often under harsh conditions in the “Special Housing Unit” (SHU) — an isolation cell known among prisoners as “the hole.”
His longest period in isolation was three and a half months. Even an interview with him at the 2021 Bitcoin conference in Miami led to a week of solitary confinement.
During his term of detention, Ulbricht received continuous support from his family, in particular from his mother Lyn Ulbricht. She worked tirelessly for his release and kept his case public. A large, worldwide community was also committed to his freedom.
In October 2022, Ulbricht addressed a letter to then-President Joe Biden asking for a pardon. He explained that he did not create the website with bad intentions, but simply wanted to implement his libertarian convictions. In the letter, he also asserted that he would never again break the law if released. President Biden, however, never responded to that letter.
At the Libertarian National Convention, Donald Trump recently announced that he would pardon Ross Ulbricht. “If you vote for me, I will commute Ross Ulbricht's sentence on the first day,” he promised to the assembled crowd. The entire Bitcoin community is now eagerly awaiting whether Trump will deliver on his promise tomorrow.
Silk Road marked a pivotal moment in Bitcoin's early history. At a time when the Bitcoin price was just a few dollars, the platform demonstrated the potential of this new technology for the first time. The daily trading volume on Silk Road reached millions — an unprecedented use case for Bitcoin transactions.
For the first time, Bitcoin was widely used as a means of payment. The platform showed the unique features of this technology: permissionless transactions without intermediaries and central control. These fundamental properties of Bitcoin still shape its development as a global, neutral payment network today.
The story of Silk Road shows that technologies such as the Tor network and Bitcoin can bypass existing structures. Laws and regulations alone cannot prevent the development and use of such technologies. This challenge will continue to concern society and legislators in the future.
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