Ross W. Ulbricht

Ross William Ulbricht, also known as Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), was born on March 27th 1984 in Austin, Texas. He had a good childhood, was a scout and a typical American teenager. Ross has an above-average IQ, in high school he always was best in class in physics and graduated 2009 his master in crystallography with good chances on the doctorate. In his free time he deals with American politics and its freedom ideals. But politics were more than only a hobby. He is displacing himself deeper and deeper in his radical ideas, leaves the University and dedicated to his political interests. The theories of a radical idealism from the Austrian Ludwig von Mieses, which continue to be popular in the US, have a big impact on Ross. With 24 years he develops to an ultra-liberal, who pursues his cause idealistically and passionately.
For ultra-liberals/libertarians the state cuts the freedom of an individual too much. They see the state as an enemy. Ross wanted a world in which the government is paralyzed and don’t order what you can buy and don’t buy. He wants to bypass the government’s regulation, because the government wants to control you.
Ross didn’t know, what he want to do later, only that it would be something big and world changing. He tried diverse works, amongst other things he wrote a Website for an online bookstore for a friend, but the store didn’t do well. He played with the thought to use existing techniques like the TOR-network and the Bitcoin payment system to build an anonym online market where you can get everything you want. So on January 2011 he puts the SilkRoad online.

The name SilkRoad refers to the historical trade rout. It is more than only a website for drug traffic and other illegal goods. On the SilkRoad you could buy everything you want. But there was a rule: It is forbidden to sell things that harm other or were procured by harm; e.g. stolen things, counterfeit money, fake coupons, hitman’s and child pornography. SilkRoad is not about dealers or revolts, it's about the right of people to stand up and not submit, if you have not done anything wrong.
In order to boost the business, Ross started to grow Magic Mushrooms and sold them on SilkRoad. A report on Gawker causes an increase of the number of users; the site is visited 1 million times a day. SilkRoad worked because users trusted Dread Pirate Roberts. In 2 years it achieved sales of about 180 million US dollars. Statistics show that SilkRoad has greatly reduced the violence of drug trafficking.

On September 2013 began the around the clock monitoring of Ross Ulbricht. Beginning October 2013 he was arrested with 29 years in a public library in San Francisco because of drug trafficking, hacking and identity theft and money laundering. On the seized pc were about 144.000 BTC, which at that time had a value of about 14 million euros.
The trial took place in federal court in New York and lasted for a period of three weeks. He was indicted on 7 counts, for which he was given a prison sentence of twice life sentence, plus 40 years without parole, as the judge wanted to set an example for him. However, this has brought nothing, today there are many more sites like the SilkRoad.
The whole case was not fair. It is controversial how the FBI came to the servers in Germany and Iceland, there were corrupt FBI agents and much exculpatory evidence was not allowed in court. In addition, the five alleged assassinations were brought to justice, but which were not in the charges. They were only brought to influence the jury. The assassinations were never executed and 2 were on fictitious names. It is not clear who has applied the assassinations. Many rumours that the SilkRoad had several administrators and one of them has applied and others say the FBI was behind it.