alt Hacker NewsPardoning Ulbricht was a campaign promise he made at the Libertarian National Convention in response to it being a popular demand among the libertarians.
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No love for Trump or libertarians but I am a cypherpunk[0] at heart. I'm on board with the idea of ensuring that things can happen online outside of the jurisdiction of any nation[1], so for his part in building towards that I'm happy Ross is free.
On the other hand, it's clear to me that the correct amount of jail time wasn't zero either, given everything else he allegedly did.
[0] https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html
[1] I think about this in the same way that we accept the possibility of bad things happening because people can have private conversations in their own home, or are able to have complete control over potentially dangerous tools and vehicles. IMO the risks are worth the trade-offs and these are important rights to protect in the relationship between people, technology, and government (or whoever wields power).
I’d like to know who wrote that speech. A lot of talk about how libertarians are domineered and persecuted. Something like “after criminal prosecutions, if I wasn’t a libertarian then, I sure am now” in front of a very idealistic audience whose skepticism of government is unrelated to how many billionaires it fingerprints. So, they booed and heckled him, and in hindsight I wonder if he was grasping for concessions.
And more importantly, among the crypto crowd that dumped millions into his campaign. Libertarians have essentially no clout or money on their own. This was a pardon bought by Coinbase and Gemini and A16z.