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Author: Cheyenne Ligon, CoinDesk; Compilation: Baishui, Bitchain Vision
Trump promised that if he was re-elected as president, he would reduce the life sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ubrich to serving his sentence.
“If you vote for me, on the first day, I will reduce Ross Ubrich’s life sentence to serving sentence,” Trump spoke at the National Congress of Libertarians in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night, while speaking at the National Convention for Libertarians in Washington, D.C.”He has served 11 years in prison and we will take him home,” he said.
Hours before the comments, Trump praised the cryptocurrency industry on social media and wrote on Truth Social:
“I’m very active and open to cryptocurrency companies and everything related to this emerging industry. Our country has to be the leader in the field,” Trump wrote, adding that President Joe Biden “hopes (Cryptocurrency industry) dies slowly and painfully. This will never happen to me!”
Trump’s promise to release Ubrich in his evening speech sparked a warm cheer from the audience, many of whom held signs saying “Release Rose”.
In 2015, Ublich was sentenced to life imprisonment twice in a row, plus 40 years in prison for establishing and operating the Silk Road – in fact, life imprisonment and no parole.The now-defunct dark web market is used to buy and sell goods anonymously, but is mainly used for drugs.Silk Road, which operated from 2011 to 2013, is widely regarded as Bitcoin’s first real-world use case.
For many in the crypto community, as well as many liberals, Ublich has become a martyr who sees Ublich’s harsh judgment as an overreach of the government and an infringement of his constitutional rights.In 2018, the Liberal Party called on then-President Trump to pardon Ublich.
Before Trump’s presidency ended in January 2021, he gave leniency to 143 people, pardoned 73 people, including Ripple’s board member Ken Kurson and commuted sentences to 70 more.He did not express leniency to Ubrich, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, who released details about the United States.
Trump also made a more general comment on cryptocurrencies at the conference, telling attendees that he would “stop Joe Biden’s plan to smash cryptocurrencies—we’ll stop it.”
“I will make sure the future of cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin will be pushed in the United States, not overseas. I will support self-custody,” Trump said in a cheer.“For 50 million cryptocurrency holders nationwide, I’m going to say this: I’ll keep Elizabeth Warren and her thugs away from your bitcoin, and I’ll never allow the creation of a central bank digital currency.”
Trump’s attitude toward cryptocurrencies has heated up dramatically in recent months, with several publicly pro-cryptocurrency comments and becoming the first presidential candidate of the major party to accept donations from cryptocurrencies.
