Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht served 12 years of a double life sentence (plus another 40 years) before US President Donald Trump pardoned him in January, freeing him from prison and kicking off a wave of other pardons that continues into this month.
This feature is part of CoinDesk’s 2025 Most Influential list.
Ulbricht, who was convicted in February 2015 and sentenced in May of that year, originally went to prison after being convicted of narcotics trafficking, conspiracy and computer hacking.
Trump promised to pardon Ulbricht in May 2024 at the Libertarian National Convention and followed through shortly after taking office last January, explicitly tying the pardon to the support he received from the Libertarian Party.
“I just called Ross William Ulbricht’s mother to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have signed a full and unconditional pardon for her son, Ross,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post at the time.
Trump didn’t stop there: In March, he pardoned former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, Hayes’ co-founders Samuel Reed and Benjamin Delo, and senior employee Greg Dwyer. For the first time in the United States, it also pardoned HDR Global Trading, the corporate entity that operates the BitMEX platform. All had pleaded guilty to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act.
Later still, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of Binance, who also pleaded guilty to charges related to the Bank Secrecy Act.
These latest pardons open the door for Hayes, Zhao and the others to re-enter the US as company offerings, and for BitMEX to easily begin doing business in the US.
Trump’s pardons are not limited to cryptocurrency executives; In recent weeks, he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández (convicted of conspiring to distribute more than 400 tons of narcotics), commuted the sentence of David Gentile (convicted of wire and securities fraud charges tied to a $1.6 billion scheme), and pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (accused of bribery with a trial scheduled for next year), among others. Trump began the year with a mass pardon of people convicted of charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
It remains to be seen whether another crypto executive will be pardoned, although one has recently staged a public relations blitz in an apparent attempt to secure a pardon even as he serves a 25-year prison sentence while awaiting an appeals court verdict on his attempt at a new trial: FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
