Trump’s pardons went in unexpected directions. The Bitcoin community will have to wait for a new chance to free Ross Ulbricht.
Donald Trump denied granting a presidential pardon to Edward Snowden and Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the Silk Road website, one of the first markets to accept bitcoin (BTC) as a means of payment. Among other relevant characters whose Trump’s administration denied a presidential pardon is Julian Assange.
The now-former president of the United States brought a presidential pardon to Ken Kurson, a member of the executive board of Ripple, and received an indictment for cyberbullying towards his ex-wife. The executive is considered by the US media as a very close friend of Trump’s stepson, Jared Kushner.
The official statements about the pardons were removed from the White House website, but the media got the news covered and highlighted it to the public. There are a total of at least 143 benefited people from the pardons that Trump granted.
Among the beneficiaries there are 73 individuals with a complete clearing of all charges, this list includes celebrities like Lil Wayne who pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a loaded weapon on a private jet while traveling to Miami in December 2020.
The other 70 individuals received gradual benefits that could relieve their charges and grant possibilities to access to appealings in the near future.
The aforementioned group (73) received complete freedom of charges, while the remaining 70 individuals received only gradual benefits.
What Happened to Assange and Snowden?
Julian Assange, Founder of Wikileaks, who helped popularize Bitcoin with his donation program; nor Edward Snowden, an agent who leaked information on US government surveillance programs did not receive any help from Trump.
Snowden’s case is very special and complex, the former president once considered him as a traitor and a spy; those thoughts seemed to change as Trump said in August that he was considering studying the case again to see if there should be clemency for the intelligence agent (Snowden).
On the other hand, Snowden seems to appear not surprised by the latest Trump’s decision, arguing that those pardons should aim at Reality Winner, who took part in the leak of a report about a Russian intervention during the 2016 elections.
Ross Ulbricht, a Freedom Flag through the entire Internet
Various communities for freedoms on the internet see Ross Ulbricht’s case as an attack on freedom, a campaign to gather signatures intending to request a presidential pardon reached the sum of almost 400,000 signatures.
Bitcoin’s implementation as a payment method in Silk Road, which was a market for illicit products was an innovation that led to the creation of many other sites that now are making a living through the darknet, Silk Road was shut down by the FBI in 2013, but it served as a starting point for many companies to consider the use of bitcoins as a payment method.
By: Jenson Nuñez
