U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison for running an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and others conducted more than $200 million in illicit trade using bitcoin.

The United States president pardoned the founder of the underground illicit drugs marketplace, as part of a raft of sweeping announcements during the first two days of his new administration.

President Donald Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the drug marketplace Silk Road who is revered by many cryptocurrency enthusiasts and Libertarians. “I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbright to let her know,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, misspelling Ulbricht’s name.

President Donald Trump Tuesday pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of dark-web drug marketplace Silk Road, 10 years into his life sentence for conspiracy to traffic narcotics, money laundering and other crimes.

Donald Trump has granted a full pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of online drug marketplace Silk Road who became a hero for America’s libertarian movement.

President Trump said he granted the full pardon in honor of Ross Ulbricht's mother "and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly."

Donald Trump has used his presidential powers to pardon convicted felon Ross Ulbricht, the founder of notorious dark web marketplace Silk Road.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison for running an underground online marketplace where drug dealers and others conducted more than $200 million in illicit trade using bitcoin.

Until, of course, in 2013 the Silk Road was shut down by FBI agents and Mr Ulbricht, then 29 years old, was arrested in the science-fiction section of a San Francisco public library. In 2015, after a four-week trial,

Console Wars’ duo Jonah Tulis and Blake J. Harris have conducted more than 60 hours of interviews with Ulbricht, who became a cause célèbre among libertarians and cryptocurrency enthusiasts after being handed two life sentences.

Libertarian and crypto allies of Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for distributing drugs on his Silk Road website, leveraged President Trump’s desire for political support to secure his release.