10 Years In Prison: How Ross Ulbricht’s Silk Road Accelerated Bitcoin Adoption

The founding father of the darknet market Silk Road which dealt completely with Bitcoin, Ross Ulbricht, lately 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 “really free market.” She stated he used Bitcoin because the platform’s forex as a result of he believed within the “financial freedom” that the forex supplied. 

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 might be achieved (the nice and the unhealthy) 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 a doubt that the platform supplied early liquidity to the ecosystem as such determine means that there was a large demand for the forex simply on account 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. 

Using Bitcoin on the platform additionally supplied perception into how Bitcoin (and different cryptocurrencies) might disrupt the monetary system and change into the go-to possibility for every day transactions, particularly because the world continues to undertake decentralized techniques.

Ross Ulbricht Exhibits 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 put up, saying 10 years in jail, he admitted that his “poor selections” led him to the place he’s now, and all that he might do was pray for mercy. 

Many have additionally jumped to his protection and proceed to clamor that injustice was achieved 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 opportunity of parole.  

BTC value rises above $28,000 | Supply: BTCUSD on Tradingview.com

Featured picture from Vicarius, chart from Tradingview.com