Share this article
Most Influential: Ross Ulbricht
Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht was pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump — kicking off a wave of pardons among some of the crypto industry’s biggest names.
Updated Dec 8, 2025, 3:50 p.m. Published Dec 8, 2025, 3:00 p.m.
Make us preferred on Google
Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht served 12 years of a double life sentence (plus another 40 years) before U.S. President Donald Trump pardoned him in January, releasing him from prison and kicking off a wave of other pardons that continues through this month.
This feature is a part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2025 list.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Ulbricht, who was convicted in February 2015 and sentenced in May that year, originally went to prison after being convicted of narcotics trafficking, conspiracy and hacking charges.
Trump pledged to pardon Ulbricht in May 2024 at the Libertarian National Convention and followed through shortly after retaking office this past January, explicitly tying the pardon to the support he received from the Libertarian Party.
“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross," Trump wrote on a Truth Social post at the time.
Trump did not stop there: In March, he pardoned former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, Hayes’ co-founders Samuel Reed and Benjamin Delo and senior employee Greg Dwyer. In a first for the U.S., he also pardoned HDR Global Trading, the corporate entity that operates the BitMEX platform. All had pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations.
Later still, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and former CEO, who also pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act-related charges.
These last few pardons open the door for Hayes, Zhao and the others to re-enter the U.S. as company offers, and for BitMEX to easily begin conducting business in the U.S.
Trump’s pardons aren’t limited to crypto executives; in recent weeks, he’s pardoned former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández (convicted of conspiring to distribute over 400 tons of narcotics), commuted the sentence of David Gentile (convicted on securities and wire fraud charges tied to a $1.6 billion scheme) and pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (indicted on bribery charges with a trial set for next year), among others. Trump began the year with a mass-pardon of individuals convicted of charges tied to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
It remains to be seen if another crypto executive will be pardoned, though one has gone on a recent public relations blitz in an apparent attempt to secure a pardon even as he serves a 25-year prison sentence while awaiting an appeals court’s verdict on his attempt at a new trial: FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
More For You
Pudgy Penguins is building a multi-vertical consumer IP platform — combining phygital products, games, NFTs and PENGU to monetize culture at scale.
What to know:
Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.
The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.
More For You
Crypto faces fork in the road as Clarity Act support wavers, Bitwise says
The asset manager argued that without federal legislation, the industry has three years to become indispensable before political winds potentially shift.
What to know:
- Bitwise said in a blog post Monday that Polymarket odds for the Clarity Act have fallen from 80% to 50% following industry pushback.
- If the bill fails, Bitwise believes crypto must achieve mass adoption in stablecoins and tokenization to force a regulatory hand.
- The firm anticipates a sharp rally upon the bill's passage, while a failure would likely lead to a "slower ascent" tied to proven utility.
Top Stories
