President Trump Pardons Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht

President Trump has followed through on one of his key campaign promises — at least for those in the crypto community — pardoning the sentence of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

Former Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht will be released imminently after President Donald Trump pardoned his life sentence.

Trump announced the pardon on Truth Social on Friday, crediting Ulbricht's mother and the Libertarian Movement for their support.

"It was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross," Trump wrote in the post.

The move follows then-candidate Trump promising a "Day One" commutation of Ulbricht's sentence last May while addressing the Libertarian Party convention.

Ulbricht was convicted in 2015 of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and distributing narcotics, along with a host of related crimes, via his operation of the darknet Silk Road marketplace. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The price of bitcoin rose in the minutes following the news, possibly as the pardon, along with a flurry of executive orders over the past hours, signals the president's intention to follow through on campaign promises.

Another one of those promises was a far friendlier crypto regulatory stance, including the possibility of the creation of a strategic bitcoin reserve.

Ulbricht's case became a cause célèbre for many in the crypto community who note he did not himself sell drugs or other illegal items but instead operated a platform where others were allowed to transact.

However, prosecutors argued that as the operator of Silk Road, Ulbricht was ultimately responsible for the narcotics sales that took place on the marketplace and that he also solicited the murders of former employees who threatened to expose Silk Road.

Those murder-for-hire charges were ultimately dropped after a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had engaged in misconduct during the investigation.