The president granted the unconditional release of the online drug impresario as a favor to libertarians and cryptocurrency partisans.

Ulbricht, who was convicted of running an anonymous online drug marketplace, became a hero to crypto-holders everywhere. What does his pardon signal for the future of the technology?

Ross Ulbricht’s first hopes for clemency died when a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Trump had planned to commute the life sentence of the founder of the Silk Road online drug bazaar at the end of his first term,