Ross Ulbricht was born in 1984 in Austin, Texas, and founded the Silk Road in 2013, a notorious dark web marketplace that facilitated illegal activities such as drug trafficking through Bitcoin transactions. During the investigation, the FBI seized 144,336 Bitcoin from a shared digital wallet on his laptop, selling them through a series of auctions that generated approximately $48.2 million.
In 2015, Ulbricht was convicted of several crimes, including money laundering, computer hacking, and narcotics trafficking. He is currently serving a double life sentence (50 years) plus an additional 40 years, totaling 1080 months, without the possibility of parole.
Many crypto enthusiasts have advocated for his release, including former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who promised during the Bitcoin conference earlier this year that he would commute his sentence if elected again.
