Technically, Donald Trump broke his marketing campaign promise by not liberating Silk Highway founder Ross Ulbricht on day certainly one 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.
Once I first heard about Silk Highway in early 2013, I used to be instantly intrigued by the idea of shopping for and promoting medicine anonymously on-line. To this present day, I feel darknet markets are the perfect middleman step earlier than the struggle on medicine is ended: It removes sellers from avenue corners whereas offering customers some degree of high quality assurance via a public score system.
Discovering Silk Highway was additionally how I first realized about Bitcoin. I began writing in regards to the digital forex just a few months later, and am nonetheless at it right now. In a manner, I owe my profession to Ulbricht.
That Ulbricht was sentenced to spend the remainder of his life in jail was a miscarriage of justice for my part. Even when you consider he’s responsible of every thing he’s been convicted of (all non-violent crimes), over a decade behind bars ought to be lengthy sufficient.
To make sure, I don’t consider Trump really cares about Ulbricht; he might have freed him throughout his first time period if that was the case. And Trump actually has no intent of ending the struggle on medicine; 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 stored his phrase.
Ross is lastly free. Properly accomplished President Trump, and everybody else who helped make this occur.
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are completely the writer’s and don’t essentially mirror these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
