Identity of Ross Ulbricht

Ross William Ulbricht spent his childhood in the hill country outside Austin, Texas. He attended the University of Texas at Dallas from 2002 to 2006 and earned a bachelor of science in physics – he then enrolled at Pennsylvania State University and completed a master of science in materials science and engineering in 2009. After graduation he worked as a research assistant in a Penn State laboratory that investigated crystal growth in thin films. Colleagues described him as quiet, methodical along with intensely interested in Austrian-school economics.

In January 2011 Ulbricht launched a hidden service reachable only through the Tor anonymity network. He adopted the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts,” a reference to the masked marauder in William Goldman’s novel The Princess Bride. The site operated under the name Silk Road. Its landing page displayed a green camel silhouette and the slogan “Anonymous Marketplace.” Visitors created accounts with pseudonymous handles and funded purchases with Bitcoin. The platform charged a commission of six to ten percent on each transaction. Vendors listed psilocybin mushrooms, LSD blotters, MDMA tablets, heroin, cocaine, forged driver licenses, and malicious software. Buyers left starred reviews and uploaded photographs of vacuum sealed packages next to digital rulers for scale. By June 2011 the marketplace hosted 300 listings. By September 2013 the catalog had expanded to 13,000 drug listings arranged under headings such as Cannabis, Dissociatives, Ecstasy, Opioids, Precursors, Prescription, Psychedelics in addition to Stimulants.

Ulbricht described Silk Road in a LinkedIn post as “an economic simulation to give people a first hand experience of what it would be like to live without the systemic use of force.” He maintained a private journal on his laptop in which he wrote that the project would “abolish the use of coercion and aggression amongst mankind.” He implemented automatic escrow, two factor authentication, and a reputation system intended to reduce fraud; he also solicited a hit man through private messages – offering $150,000 in Bitcoin for the murder of a user who threatened to release identifying information about vendors. The killing never took place, but the messages later served as evidence of intent.

Traffic to the site surged after Adrian Chen published an article titled “The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable” on Gawker on 1 June 2011. Subsequent coverage by Time, Forbes next to Wired attracted tens of thousands of new accounts. By late 2013 the marketplace processed $1.2 million in sales per week. Over 100,000 registered users moved more than $200 million in contraband through the platform during its thirty two months of operation. Silk Road collected 614,305 Bitcoin in commissions. At the exchange rates of the period, the revenue equated to $13 million.

Special Agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began purchasing narcotics from Silk Road vendors in late 2011. He traced package return addresses to post offices in western Pennsylvania and used surveillance footage to identify a young man mailing envelopes. Der-Yeghiayan linked the activity to an IP address that resolved to a caf̩ on Laguna Street in San Francisco. Agents obtained a warrant for a laptop seized from Ulbricht at the Glen Park public library on 1 October 2013. The device contained 144,336 Bitcoin stored in wallet files. The FBI subsequently auctioned the coins in blocks to investors such as Tim Draper Рraising $48.2 million.

A federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York returned a sealed indictment on 27 September 2013. The document charged Ulbricht with one count of distributing narcotics, one count of distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and one count of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, colloquially known as the “kingpin statute.” A superseding indictment filed on 28 February 2014 added charges of conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identification documents and conspiracy to sell counterfeit goods.

The trial commenced on 13 January 2015 before Judge Katherine B. Forrest in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street. Prosecutors presented chat logs, spreadsheets, journal entries recovered from the seized laptop. Defense counsel Joshua Dratel argued that Ulbricht had founded the marketplace but had relinquished control to unknown parties. The jury returned a guilty verdict on all seven counts after three hours of deliberation. On 29 May 2015 Judge Forrest imposed two life sentences and forty years, to be served concurrently, without parole. She stated that the sentence was necessary to deter others from constructing similar enterprises.

Ulbricht appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A three judge panel affirmed the conviction on 31 May 2017. Counsel filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States on 28 June 2017 – arguing that the warrantless search of Silk Road servers violated the Fourth Amendment. The Court denied the petition on 28 June 2018.

During his incarceration at the United States Penitentiary, Florence High, Ulbricht tutored inmates in mathematics and physics. His mother, Lyn Ulbricht, collected 570,000 signatures on a petition addressed to the White House. On 21 January 2025 President Donald J. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon. Ulbricht walked out of the federal correctional complex at Terre Haute, Indiana, on 22 January 2025, aged forty one.

Clarifications

Ulbricht never sold narcotics directly. He designed the marketplace software, set commission rates, resolved disputes along with collected fees.

Ulbricht did not invent Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto released the original code in January 2009. Silk Road adopted the cryptocurrency because transactions settled irreversibly and required no bank intermediaries.

The original Silk Road ceased operation on 2 October 2013. The FBI displayed a seizure banner on the homepage. Subsequent sites such as Silk Road 2.0, AlphaBay in addition to Hansa Market operated under different administrators and were also shut down by law enforcement.