The founding father of the darknet market Silk Road which dealt solely with Bitcoin, Ross Ulbricht, not too long ago announced that he had spent 10 years in jail. Regardless of his fraudulent actions, Ulbricht is a well-liked determine within the crypto neighborhood as he’s believed to have contributed to the accelerated adoption of the flagship cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
Silk Highway And Bitcoin Adoption
Silk Highway was an internet black platform that was used to facilitate unlawful actions, together with drug commerce and cash laundering. Curiously, Bitcoin was the one forex used to facilitate these transactions, as Ulbricht is alleged to have been an enormous proponent of the flagship cryptocurrency.
In keeping with Ulbricht’s mother, her son created the Silk Highway with the intention of offering a “actually free market.” She mentioned he used Bitcoin because the platform’s forex as a result of he believed within the “financial freedom” that the forex offered.
His actions undoubtedly helped to extend Bitcoin’s utility and recognition (though not essentially in a great way). In reality, some take into account Silk Highway as Bitcoin’s “first vital use case” because it exemplified what could possibly be achieved (the nice and the dangerous) with the decentralized forex.
Silk Highway is alleged to have processed as a lot as $45 million yearly in gross sales (all in Bitcoin). There isn’t any doubt that the platform offered early liquidity to the ecosystem as such determine means that there was a large demand for the forex simply because of transactions on the Silk Highway platform.
Ulbricht Silk Highway was even rumored to have been one of many largest holders of BTC in some unspecified time in the future. Legislation enforcement is said to have confiscated a complete of 174,000 BTC from Ulbricht and the Silk Highway syndicate.
The usage of Bitcoin on the platform additionally offered perception into how Bitcoin (and different cryptocurrencies) may disrupt the monetary system and change into the go-to possibility for each day transactions, particularly because the world continues to undertake decentralized techniques.
Ross Ulbricht Reveals Regret
In the meantime, the Silk Road founder has continued to specific regret for his actions on his X (previously Twitter) platform. Nonetheless, it’s believed {that a} relative manages the web page, contemplating that Ulbricht continues to be in jail.
In his newest publish, saying 10 years in jail, he admitted that his “poor decisions” led him to the place he’s now, and all that he may do was pray for mercy.
Many have additionally jumped to his protection and proceed to clamor that injustice was executed in how his case was dealt with. Some imagine he didn’t deserve the punishment as a result of it didn’t match the crime. Ulbricht’s sentence is life imprisonment with out the potential for parole.
BTC value rises above $28,000 | Supply: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com
Featured picture from Vicarius, chart from Tradingview.com
