Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to 12 years of a double life sentence (plus 40 years in prison) before US President Donald Trump pardoned him in January, releasing him from prison and triggering a wave of other pardons that continued this month.
Ulbricht was convicted in February 2015 and sentenced in May of that year, initially serving time in prison on drug trafficking, conspiracy and hacking charges.
Trump pledged to pardon Ulbricht at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in May 2024 and followed through on that promise shortly after returning to office in January this year, 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 that has given me such strong support, I am pleased to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon for her son Ross,” Trump wrote in a Truth Society post at the time.
Trump didn’t stop there: In March, he pardoned former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, Hayes’ co-founders Samuel Reed and Benjamin Delo, and senior employee Greg Dwyer. He also pardoned HDR Global Trading, the corporate entity that operates the BitMEX platform, a first in the United States. All admitted violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
Trump subsequently pardoned Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, who also pleaded guilty to charges related to the Bank Secrecy Act.
The last few pardons have opened the door for Hayes, Zhao and others to re-enter the U.S. as proposed by the company, and for BitMEX to easily begin operating in the U.S.
Trump’s pardons are not limited to cryptocurrency executives; in recent weeks, he has pardoned former Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernandez (convicted of conspiring to distribute more than 400 tons of drugs), commuted the sentence of David Gentil (convicted of securities and wire fraud charges related to a $1.6 billion scheme), and pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (indicted on bribery charges, with a trial set to take place next year), among others. Trump began the new year by issuing mass pardons to individuals convicted of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.
It remains to be seen whether another cryptocurrency executive will be pardoned, although one of them recently went on a PR blitz in an apparent bid to secure a pardon while serving a 25-year sentence while awaiting an appeals court ruling on his attempt to get a new trial: FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
