Major cases are viewed from a political perspective, medium cases are viewed from an impact perspective, and minor cases are viewed from a legal perspective.

Author and Source: Zuo Ye Wai Bo Mountain

Crazy People Inside and Outside of Prison

At the beginning of Trump's term, Musk tweeted a hint that the new president would pardon the founder of the Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, or the "Pirate Roberts". To briefly mention his past glory, in 2011, Ross founded the Dark Web e-commerce platform Silk Road, which allowed people to freely buy and sell various drugs including marijuana and heroin, thus earning over 170,000 bitcoins.

Ross Ulbricht himself was also sentenced to life imprisonment, and as of 2025, he has been in prison for 11 years, or 4,125 days, and has reached the age of 40.

Normally, this would just be a routine case between the police and drug dealers, but because it involves Bitcoin and the person Ross Ulbricht, the story has gradually become absurd:

1. Ross used Bitcoin and the e-commerce platform to fight against fiat currency and the Federal Reserve, not for profit, because at the time, the price of Bitcoin was very low. Under his "regulation", buyers and sellers needed to operate with integrity, ensuring quality, to some extent shaping a safer business model than street sales, protecting human rights and practicing the principles of a free market.

2. Ross himself is a so-called "libertarian", a staunch follower of Hayek and others, who believes that everyone has the right to choose their own actions and be responsible for them, which is not essentially harming others.

In this way, the story gradually became more and more absurd after "the drug dealer was arrested". After being convicted in 2015, his wife and parents began to take action and joined forces with the de facto third largest party in the United States - the Libertarian Party, launching the Free Ross movement in the hope of reducing his sentence or pardoning him.

As the saying goes, "major cases are viewed from a political perspective, medium cases are viewed from an impact perspective, and minor cases are viewed from a legal perspective". Ross's arrest and conviction was a legal action, the Free Ross movement was an impact, and now it has come to the political action, and the core of American politics is elections.

From then on, it was linked to Trump, because Ross has become one of the core issues for Libertarian Party voters, and although the United States is a contest between the Democratic and Republican parties for the presidency, the Libertarian Party also has more than 600,000 votes, and in the current close state of the two-party race in the United States, every vote is precious.

Therefore, there was Trump's contradictory stance of supporting strict drug prohibition, but not preventing "him from being a libertarian". In May 2024, Trump first stated that he would pardon Ross Ulbricht on the day of his election, which was a "boast" he made at the Libertarian Party National Convention.

There is also a subplot to this story, where Robert Francis Kennedy, the anti-vaccine member of the Kennedy family nominated by Trump, is a Libertarian Party alumnus, and was eliminated in the Libertarian Party presidential primary election, sowing the seeds for him to switch to Trump.

So, Trump's intention to pardon Ross Ulbricht is purely a vote-getting move, and given his own attitude towards drugs, he is unlikely to have much interest in "libertarianism", and whether he will fulfill his promise will depend on whether Musk's fanning of the flames can succeed, after all, he is a true libertarian.

Libertarianism

As mentioned earlier, although Ross is in prison, his heart is still in the circle, and he has expressed his thoughts and ideas through various means, but one thing is that he has never "confessed", that is, he is still a so-called libertarian.

Given this, we must explain what this libertarianism is. If we divide it according to the classic schools, libertarianism can be roughly divided into three main categories: classical liberalism, neoliberalism, and social liberalism, which are not the only branches, but the three most typical and popular ones.

Classical liberalism is represented by the Enlightenment leader Rousseau, mainly opposing feudalism and monarchy, emphasizing the importance of individual freedom, while neoliberalism was heavily promoted by the United States in the late Cold War period, emphasizing small government and free markets, such as Trump's idol, President Reagan, who used it to defeat the Soviet Union's ideology.

As for social liberalism, there is no need to say much more, it is more like a variant of left-wing political thought combined with Keynesian economics, emphasizing welfare and equality, and is relatively marginal in the current European and American political ecology.

The libertarianism that Ross Ulbricht believes in is even more heavyweight, and can even be called absolute liberalism, the core theory of which is thatevery person has the right to engage in any behavior that does not harm others, and can act entirely according to their own will, including selling their own bodies and parts of their bodies.

So according to the libertarian manifesto, Ross Ulbricht's behavior does not have the element of coercing others, and can even be said to be helping others realize their own free will.

That's why Vitalik also supports Ross Ulbricht, because he also agrees that everyone has the freedom to profit from selling their own bodies;

That's why Musk also supports Ross Ulbricht, after all, running an online store is really not a "sin" compared to brain implants and biological experiments.

However, it should be noted that Trump has not actually promised to "pardon" Ross Ulbricht, a form of sentence reduction would also fulfill the promise, and given the abuse of the pardon power by the previous US president, the resistance Trump would face in pardoning a non-political figure would not be very great, it all depends on whether he cares about the Libertarian Party and its supporters.

Conclusion

If one looks at Trump's intention to pardon the founder of the Silk Road, it may give the impression of a reconciliation with a criminal, but in fact this is just a boring game of votes. Even when Trump calls himself a libertarian, the Libertarian Party members attending the meeting do not believe it and burst out laughing.

In short, Trump's pardon of Ross Ulbricht has already become a Rashomon for a thousand people, Bitcoin enthusiasts will think that Trump supports Bitcoin, and libertarians will think that Trump supports libertarianism.

Everyone hopes to see the content they like, and the freedom of the mind is indeed the underlying theory of libertarianism. Under the "abuse" of the pardon power by the previous president, the authority of the judiciary has already been declining, and whether Trump pardons Ross Ulbricht or not, it cannot become a huge bonus for Bitcoin or libertarianism.