{"id":16205,"date":"2021-06-04T20:38:12","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T20:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci0284aa33d00024a4"},"modified":"2021-06-04T20:38:12","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T20:38:12","slug":"silk-road-ross-ulbricht-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-from-prison","title":{"rendered":"In First Interview Since Arrest, Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Appeals To Bitcoin Users"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Speaking publicly for the first time since a 2013 arrest for his role in creating and managing bitcoin-based online marketplace Silk Road<\/a>, Ross Ulbricht described his original intentions for the darknet site and appealed to the Bitcoin community to continue advocating for freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spent the last eight years watching Bitcoin grow up from in here,\u201d Ulbricht said in a phone interview with Bitcoin Magazine <\/em>from a maximum security federal prison, <\/em>which premiered at the Bitcoin 2021<\/a> conference. \u201cI\u2019ve seen incredible innovation. I\u2019ve seen inspiring courage. We didn\u2019t know how things would turn out for Bitcoin back in the beginning, but over the years, I\u2019ve been continually impressed with what you\u2019ve accomplished\u2026 We are transforming the global economy. We have brought a taste of freedom and equality to far corners of the world. I know we can transform criminal justice, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ulbricht launched Silk Road in 2011, when he was 26, and it quickly became the most significant real-world use case for the pseudonymous, censorship-resistant attributes of the recently-launched Bitcoin project<\/a>. In 2015 he was convicted of money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to traffic illicit items and received a double life sentence plus forty years in prison.<\/p>\n

During the call, he explained that he had launched Silk Road without an understanding of how popular it would be or how exactly it would be used, but with a desire to leverage the unique properties of Bitcoin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought with Bitcoin, I could try and do something that actually makes a difference\u2026 Back then, I was impatient,\u201d he said. \u201cI rushed ahead with my first idea, which was Silk Road\u2026 That\u2019s a 26-year-old who thinks he has to save the world before someone beats him to it. I had no idea Silk Road would work, but now we all know it caught on. It was used to sell drugs, and now I\u2019m in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n

He underscored the fact that he faces a lifetime in prison because he had tried to enable a marketplace that sought to operate outside of mainstream regulation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony is that I made Silk Road in the first place because I thought I was furthering the things I cared about: Freedom, privacy, equality,\u201d Ulbricht said. \u201cBut by making Silk Road, I wound up in a place where those things don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ulbricht\u2019s family and friends have maintained the Free Ross project<\/a> in an effort to garner support for a reduction in his sentence. During the call, Ulbricht appealed to the Bitcoin community to realize the freedom-enhancing qualities of the technology by helping cases like his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cBitcoin is strong,\u201d Ulbricht said. \u201cBitcoin is powerful. We are powerful. And our work is not over. It\u2019s time to wake up, it\u2019s time to take the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ross Ulbricht, founder of infamous bitcoin-based darknet marketplace Silk Road, called Bitcoin Magazine from prison to appeal for freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2705,"featured_media":6768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2213,1873,219,87,808],"class_list":["post-16205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture","tag-bitcoin-2021","tag-darknet-markets","tag-regulation","tag-ross-ulbricht","tag-silk-road"],"author_data":{"id":2705,"name":"Peter Chawaga","nicename":"peter-chawaga","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/peterc-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/silk-road-ross-ulbricht.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2705"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}