Donald Trump, the new president of the United States, had promised a few things at the Bitcoin Conference 2024. First of all, he would remove Gary Gensler from the SEC field, then the creation of a national reserve in BTC, the release of Ross Ulbricht (founder of Silk Road).

In about 10 days since he took office:

🔹Paul Atkins (crypto friendly) replaced Gary Gensler as head of the SEC

🔹Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) was formed to make government faster and more efficient

🔹Elected Cynthia Lummis (crypto friendly) as senator in charge of digital assets

🔹Launched 2 memecoins/rug ($Trump and $Melania)

🔹Asked for ETF approval for $Doge, $Bonk and $Trump

🔹Continued to buy assets in his DeFi project (World Liberty Financial)

🔹Banned CBDC (digital fiats issued by central banks)

🔹Rleased Ross Ulbricht from prison (much loved in the Bitcoin Community, as he was the first to have used BTC as a currency for buying and selling goods and services)

Surely great political propaganda, however he is doing something for the crypto sector (ok the main purpose is always doing business and personal interests).

ROSS ULBRICHT'S RELEASE
Ross Ulbricht was the founder of the black market Silk Road seized and shut down by the FBI in 2013. Ross was charged with conspiracy, drug trafficking, selling weapons, illegal material, money laundering, computer crimes and 6 attempted murders (these last ones never proven and then withdrawn from the official charge). Ulbricht had created a P2P market where it was possible to exchange goods and pay in BTC. Things immediately took a turn for the worse because almost all the volume generated was derived from illegal exchanges (drugs, weapons, counterfeit banknotes, malware and pirated software). Silk Road was shut down by the FBI in 2013 (there were about 1M registered users), then other variants of it were born (Silk Road2, Silk Road3) and hundreds of black markets (both at the time and in the following years). Ulbricht, also known as "Dread Pirate Roberts" was arrested in a library in San Francisco and sentenced to life in prison. Let's be clear, Silk Road was created with the main intent of building a "black market", however every merchant could have sold whatever he wanted (there were also drugs, stolen goods, ebooks). Things quickly degenerated because obviously it would not have made much sense to go and sell a chair, a shirt or music CD. Ulbricht did not sell himself, however he and "trusted users" (escrow) earned fees (from 3-4%) on each successful transaction.
Trump, after promising him a pardon in mid-2024, on the second day of his election on the social Truth, said that the 2 life sentences handed down were simply ridiculous. He called Ross' mother stating that her son is a free man. Total and unconditional pardon for Ross.

According to on-chain analysis, Ross Ulbricht would still have a value in BTC of 45 million dollars (between 440 and 447 BTC, dormant since 2013, the year of his arrest). The US government had seized 69,370 BTC from Ulbricht (just under $7 billion today) and another 50,676 BTC belonging to other entities connected to Silk Road for a total of over 120,000 BTC (over $13 billion at today's exchange rate). Around $185 million in 2020 had been used to pay off his debts for illegal activities committed between 2011 and 2013.

It is very likely that this old address with 89 BTC also belongs to him:

1CQvW4U4ZEbdmazX2Rbn5URWgd6MfWoPx1 (BTC)

Addresses (recently created) definitely belonging to Ulbricht are these two (here in the days of his release from prison he received donations from users and the Kraken exchange):

bc1qzrkdfpc4dxyyg6axvstft7sx8vhgverhvyv82y (BTC)
0x29356D5f39bDc33f86eE943089f7d130695fb435 (EVM)

There are also about ten old addresses that have not been confiscated and also contain between 440 and 447 Bitcoin Cash (190K) and the same number of Bitcoin SV (Bitcoin Cash fork). It is not known, however, whether Ulbricht still has the private keys/seeds.

What do you think? Is it right to free Ross Ulbricht? Personally, I have always thought that life imprisonment was an excessive sentence. He rightly paid for the crimes he committed (12 years in prison) but the sentence always seemed excessive to me. I repeat, he created the marketplace, he speculated on illegal sales creating a business that today has a value of just under 15 billion... however, he did not remain the protagonist in first person of all those crimes. Otherwise we should also arrest the knife manufacturers: some use them for cooking, others illegally.

RECENT UPDATES CRYPTO MARKET
If Trump is doing what he promised, however his policies (mainly tariffs in Europe and China) 1 week ago triggered crashes in speculative markets (stocks and crypto). I remain confident and see 2025 as a very bullish year and I also expect a strong altseason (as soon as ETH starts to outperform BTC). Remember that ETH suffers BTC for 3.5 years out of 4...but in those few months that it does better it drags the entire altcoin market with it. In my opinion the trigger will be the national reserve in BTC. As soon as the announcement is released, BTC will make new ATH and with the slight reversal it will start ETH and the altseason. Remember though that it lasts a maximum of 2 months!

Don't hold shit, speculate and accumulate BTC!

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