Las Vegas, Nevada – The founder of the Silk Route, Ross Ulbricht, has a message for the cryptographic community: if you want to maintain your freedom, you must remain unified and decentralized, and must be prepared for a fight.
In a sincere main speech that closed Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas on Thursday, Ulbricht, who addresses the public in person for the first time since he was released from prison in January, shared a story to illustrate his three guiding principles: freedom, decentralization and unity.
Ulbricht explained that, in the first days of the silk route, he wanted to grow hallucinogenic fungi to store the Darknet market, so he rented a remote cabin. The cabin, she said, was infested with wasps. He proposed to deal with the wasps, using a trick that his father had taught him that he meant catching the nests of the wasps under a towel.
“My heart was beating strongly,” said Ulbricht. “I selected the nest that was farther from others, because I didn’t know if the other nests would come and chop me, they extended the towel, they approached me as much as I could, ready to flee if I had to do it, but when I finished the nest, nothing happened. It was as if the other wasps did not realize.”
Ulbricht said the wasps were strong because they were free: “It was impossible to monitor so many individual wasps, a sting could come from any direction. They were strong because they were decentralized, in seven nests.”
But, Ulbricht said, the wasps were finally weak because they were not unified and did not react when their fellow waspas were shot down.
“If a single wasp dared to come to chop when I achieved that first nest, I would have fled … but they did not. Thank God they are not wasps,” said Ulbricht.
Before being forgiven by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in January, the result of a promise that Trump made in the campaign in 2024, Ulbricht spent 12 years behind bars. His speech on Thursday marked the tenth anniversary, until the day, of a New York judge sentenced to Ulbricht, 31, two perpetual chains, over 40 years, for possessing and operating the market of the dark network.
During his opening speech, Ulbricht, who has been free for four months, still seemed floating with his new freedom. In a video assembly before its appearance on stage, Ulbricht clips experience life outside the prison, traveling, surfing, spending time with their wife, played on the screen, each showing a radiant Ulbricht.
“Winning her freedom feels as amazing as losing her feels horrible,” said Ulbricht, accrediting the cryptographic community for advocating his release. “I am free, and it is for you. You did this possible moment … thanks, thanks, thanks.”
After more than a decade after bars, Ulbricht compared with Rip Van Winkle, admitting that he was overwhelmed with all technological advances since he went to prison.
“There are dozens of new cryptocurrencies and block chains, each fascinating for my own right, and thousands will never have time to learn. There are defi and web3 and AI to help me navigate everything. He is crazy,” said Ulbricht. “I mean, just a few months ago, when I left prison, I had never seen a drone … everything is hitting me immediately, freedom, the new technology, the fact that I have a future again.”
Ulbricht closed telling the audience about gangs and factions in prison, saying that he quickly understood that prison guardians like inmates.
“The only times that I saw the Guardians showing respect to the prisoners was when we were united,” said Ulbricht. “Those who oppose decentralization and freedom love when we are divided, I promise you, so keep together. While we can agree that we deserve freedom, and that decentralization is how we assure it, then we can unite … Keep faithful to these principles and the future is ours.”
