Topic: Ross Ulbricht is coming home in January! - page 2. (Read 1919 times)

The sentence was not only absurd but a clear violation of the US Constitution's mandate against cruel and unusual punishment.
If it could happen to Ulbrecht it could happen to anyone and sets a terrible precedent.

The judge and prosecutors responsible for such a heinous sentence and egregious disregard for the highest law of the land ought to be arrested and imprisoned themselves for treason IMO,
or at the very least removed and disbarred. This shit should never happen again and the only way to assure that it won't is to hold the authorities in charge of it accountable.

And fuck Obama for not doing something about it when he had the chance to release him sooner. He is part of the problem.

it is crazy to think even from ross' perspective i mean what could have been 11 years of prison time thinking you will never see the light of day until a new president comes and personally orders you to be freed that must have felt crazy and relieving at the same time
i disagree this was of course still a political move from trump he wanted the libertarians on his side and ross was basically jesus for those part of the libertarian movement as well as those involved in crypto since libertarianism advocates for limited governance

whatever his intentions were, it is good to know that trump fulfills his promises and we can expect him to stay true to his words

In our world, many people deserve to be in places we don't want to be, but those who are not - are doing what they did and would never face consequences for it. Such is the truth about it.
Great to see that Trump delivered on what he said.

I totally agree with you, starting from not supporting Trump for many things until the idea that they wanted to make an example out of Ulbricht because let's be honest, his verdict was totally crazy, extremely exaggerated for what he did, especially when we think about people like SBF who actually ruined many people's lives. Trump promised it to the crypto community and he delivered it.

^ Every story like that has to have its sufferer in the end for the public eye, it's not uncommon.
But I digress, let the man rest.
No matter what was done behind the backs of the public, he got his lucky ticket.

According to the LinkedIn page of Ross Ulbricht's e-commerce site Silk Road in 2011,  Ulbricht envisioned the site as a “means to abolish the use of coercion and aggression amongst mankind.” That's why he made his site accessible only on the dark web. There, he created an opportunity to buy and sell various goods through cryptocurrency, where there was no need to use paper money. But the FBI shut down his site, accusing him of being involved in various criminal activities, including illegal things like drugs, illegal weapons sales, and smuggling etc, through this site. Although such allegations were made against him, he denied them. What I understand is that his insistence on getting out of paper money and becoming independent was an important issue.

I think there was no logic in keeping him in prison life time for these crimes. There are many big criminals in society who are involved in various illegal activities, but they are not given such punishment. But why only Ross Ulbricht? He has returned from a long stay in prison. I hope he has a good time with his family and he will do good deeds in the future.

If that were to be allowed, then Bitcoin would lose some of its use case/reason for existing, and the Dark Markets would lose all of its customers.

But because the government wants to control EVERYTHING, banning ANYTHING they don't like, and gatekeeping MOST of the wealth, then censorship-resistant tools such as Bitcoin and other cryptographic tools shall be a means to bring real social and political change.
  👍

I know about altoid account, but it's very name is showing this is alt account from someone.
He probably used other accounts in bitcointalk forum early days, but he can always create a new account for his comeback.
However, if I was Ross I would not think about that after spending so many years in prison.


 

Silk Road wasn't an "everything goes" darknet marketplace. Items that cause real harm, like weapons, child abuse imagery or stolen credit cards, were banned, and I think Ulbricht and his co-operators deserve credit for the enforcement of relatively strict rules. 70% were drugs according to Wikipedia.

I'm not in favour of consumption of (most) illegal drugs and I know that they can do harm in many situations, but their danger compared to legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco is greatly exaggerated (deaths by alcohol/cigarettes largely outnumber those by any other drug). I'm thus of the opinion that it should be allowed to privately trade drugs, e.g. via the Internet.

There is even research pointing out that online drug trade reduced violence associated with the drug business, e.g. the often deadly competition of gangs and dealers for neighborhoods (e.g. see this paper).

In any case, I oppose prison sentences for anything unrelated to real violence, and life sentences for Silk Road is such a gross aberration that I think it is a human rights concern.

Thus, I think I consider this is Trump's only positive action as president until now, and in reality I had hoped Biden could issue that pardon when still in functions. I agree with you that for everything else Trump is very close to Putin and other autocrats and that he's generally a detestable, hateful and dangerous person.

We won't find the details about what were the conditions for it to happen behind the curtains, but yeah, cheers for him and his family.
He won't be a symbolic figure that suffers for all the Darknet anymore.

I'm agnostic, and I respect all honest opinions from this matter. Plus I truly agree that he should spend time in prison for doing something illegal. But we can't take away the FACT, not a mere opinion, that he built something very useful for Bitcoin, and something which truly embodies what Bitcoin should actually be - A censorship-resistant asset that can be used for filling gaps in the market, and make them more efficient.

Because if it wasn't Ross Ulbricht, I'm very confident another person would build the first Dark Market site. It's an obvious use-case for Bitcoin, and technically a very good one.

Kind of crazy to think ross's freedom was essentially tied to an election.  It was a one and done chance.  I think trump is the only one who would follow through and pardon someone like ross.  There isnt much reason for a polititcian to release someone like ross so good on him.  Happy for his family and hope the dude does something good with his second chance.

nope pirateat40 was a guy named trendon shavers (dang even that tipbit of info is still rattling in my head without needing a google search)


personally i think a pardon "coz bitcoin" wouldnt be justice served. as he did other crimes, even stuff trump is wanting to bring back the death penalty for for mexican cartels that do similar promotions of hitmen and drugs..(organised criminal services)

alot of people think because they use bitcoin, they become immune to all other crimes... EG counterfeit passports are not illegal if bought with btc. class A drugs are legal if using btc(facepalm), and deserve instant pardons 'coz bitcoin'.. but sorry folks crimes are still crimes no matter how you got paid for it

but that said. 12 years compared to the 2life sentances+40 seems more fairish for operating a market place rather than being the actual hitman/dealer.. i woulda probably said DPR should stay a little longer if trump pardoned him in 2017, but i think now, 12 years is probably enough

I know some people took this news with anger and hoped for Ross to rot in prison.  I do not support many things Trump is doing or has done in the past.  But I can not deny it.  To me, this is great news.  Ross is FINALLY free!  He is finally NOT going to be stamped by the State as an example for everybody else who wants to be Anonymous or to run away from all the dirty things Governments do.

I can not imagine how it feels finally being behind the fence of a prison you knew very well you would spend your last breating minutes in.

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This sounds kind of selfish, in a lack of a better word to describe it.  You 'enabled' the sale of drugs, weapons and various other illegal activities by actively promoting Mixers instead of actively promoting and supporting Centralized Exchanges with clear filters for incoming UTXOs that help block funds of criminals.  How about that?

Being the one who has a free mind and wants to invent a completely free Market is not the same as having a criminal mind and wanting to sell drugs, weapons and do Money Laundering.  As I am sure was also your case, where I presume you only wanted to promote a way for people to further improve their Privacy while using Bitcoin.  Other people had a criminal mind and used or promoted Mixers for illegal purposes.  As is the case for most things that are less controlled.  It used to be the case for Telegram and still is for the most part, it still is the case with Tor and small communities of ill minded people actively browsing Onion websites with content they should not be browsing, owning, uploading or distributing.

Also, whether Trump is good or bad has nothing to do with who is Ulbricht and what he has done or the kind of person he is.  Does it make you a criminal if Trump states tomorrow that 'Lucius, the Bitcoin forum guy, is a really cool dude'?

It also does not mean that if somebody did 100 bad things, they cancel the 1 good thing they have done.  In my sole opinion and based on my knowledge on this case, Ross Ulbricht did not deserve his sentence.  Trump may have used this pardon to cause more hype for Bitcoin, for the scammy TRUMP Token, for who ever knows what.  It is however healthy to judge Trump or Putin and Ulbricht separately, particularly considering there is no evidence of having any links and particularly considering the case of Ross has many caveats and unanswered questions.  And many of these questions are about the way the case has been handled.

There was this post today on the Wall Observer showing some of the other aliases he had used on the forums (not just this one) grabbed from a wiki page:

But I have known him shown as the Dread Pirate Roberts or DPR for short and they used this moniker for the countless movies made of his story over the years.

This post back in 2012 states he was Pirateat40 but not confirmed:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1171838

I'm not aware of all of them, but considering this[1] post from theymos, allegedly, the account altoid belonged to him[2]. Apparently, he also had an account on Stack Overflow as well[3].

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[1]https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/dpr-subpoena-881488
[2]https://archive.is/WGtWF
[3]https://archive.is/igUtH

Does anyone know all confirmed forum accounts used by Ross?
It would be very cool to see Ross Ulbricht coming back to bitcointalk forum and writing few comeback words here.
I wish him all the best and recovery to normal every day life after spending 11 years in prison.

He said he did it in honor of the Libertarian Movement which supported him "so strongly" but IMO Ross Ulbricht should thank Elon Musk too because Trump had never talked about him during his first term. So that's a bit surprising to make it now. Musk even said he was with Trump in the Oval Office when he signed it.
Well I hope for the market Ross won't sell all his Bitcoins in the next few weeks now.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/113869112741612092

Great news indeed. I was worried that it all could be just an election talk and that Trump may forget about him later on. Not only did that not happen, but Trump even called Ross's mother to inform her about signing the pardon. Really nice move.

I wonder what's next for him. With the fame and recognition he probably won't end up working a regular 9 to 5 job. I just hope he does not stoop as low as to create his own meme coin  .

His punishment is more than the crime. I personally think he is being held captive because I see no other reason to steal his wealth.