🔒 This is Ross Ulbricht — once the biggest $BTC holder on Earth.
He controlled 144,000 Bitcoin (worth $15 billion today).
But one mistake cost him everything.
Now, after 12 years in prison, he’s reportedly selling personal items just to survive.
Here’s one of the wildest, most controversial stories in crypto history 👇🧵
🚪 Enter the Silk Road.
In 2011, Ross—an idealistic Penn State grad—launched a darknet marketplace with one mission:
To use Bitcoin to disrupt government control over money and markets.
📜 Inspired by Austrian economics and libertarian philosophy, he believed that voluntary exchange should never be criminalized.
But the Silk Road wasn’t just theory—it became the Amazon of the dark web, where people bought everything from books to banned substances… all paid in BTC.
👁️ The FBI was watching.
Ross operated under the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts.”
But operational mistakes, metadata trails, and old posts eventually linked him to the site.
In 2013, he was arrested in a San Francisco library.
The feds seized 144,000 BTC from his laptop—one of the largest crypto hauls in history.
⚖️ Ross was sentenced to double life without parole.
Some call him a criminal. Others call him a political prisoner.
One thing is certain: his story is a turning point in Bitcoin’s rise.
Would you pardon Ross Ulbricht?
