Full Speech》Dark web Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht: Upholding the spirit of BTC, unity and decentralization bring freedom.

Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, delivered a moving keynote speech at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas yesterday (29) after being pardoned and released from prison by US President Donald Trump in January this year. In his speech, Ross shared his experience of clearing the hornet's nest as a metaphor for the three guiding principles he espoised: freedom, decentralization, and unity. (Synopsis: Founder of "Silk Road" shares life in prison: I originally wanted to change the world with Bitcoin. (Background added: Ross Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road, is free!) Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the once-popular dark web marketplace "Silk Road", delivered a moving keynote speech at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas yesterday (29) after being pardoned and released from prison by US President Donald Trump in January this year. It was his first public appearance since his arrest in 2013. In his speech, Ross shared his experience of clearing the hornet's nest as a metaphor for the three guiding principles he espoised: freedom, decentralization, and unity. He called on the cryptocurrency community to stick to these principles and unite to ensure a free future. In his speech, Ross reflected on his 12 years in prison, thanked the community for their support in setting him free, and expressed his shock and hope for new technology and a free future. He stressed that freedom is worth fighting for, and that decentralization and unity are indispensable forces for the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency community. Full text of Ross Ulbricht's speech Without unity and decentralization, there is no freedom Hey everyone, I'm no longer in the cell! That's right, I'm standing on this stage right in front of you, and today is May 29th, exactly the day I stood in the courtroom and faced the judge ten years ago. On that day, the judge sentenced me to life in prison, with no possibility of parole, and I was 31 years old at the time. If she and everyone involved in my case succeeded, I would grow old in prison and eventually die. But now, I'm here, with you. Just a few months ago, I was trapped inside the walls of a prison, wondering if I would ever regain my freedom. And now, I'm free! I'm free, and it's all because of you. You are the ones who make this moment possible. Can you feel the shock? Let this emotion settle. It was you, you, you, you, you who did it all! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! You are not alone, you are part of a larger cause. This is bigger than Bitcoin and bigger than cryptocurrency. To regain my freedom, it takes many people from all walks of life to come together and say: this is not right. People like you need to stand up and say: We care about freedom, and locking people like Ross to death is in itself a threat to freedom. It takes President Trump to recognize that this is an injustice and to hear so many of you calling for my release. I am very, very grateful that we chose him and that he is a man of his word. He said he would set me free, and he did. This is him, a man of integrity. A few years ago, I was still in prison, desperate and desperate, and I spoke to you at this meeting through my prison phone. Raise your hand, how many people have heard me speak at Bitcoin Conference 2021? Well, probably 20 percent. In that speech, I wanted you to understand what it means to lose your freedom. I wish I had understood this before the creation of the Silk Road, before I risked losing my freedom. Those lessons that I have learned at the cost of pain, I want to pass on to you. Because of that speech, I lost more freedom. The prison put me in confinement for a while, and when they released me, they kept me under close surveillance for years until President Trump pardoned me. But you know what? I'm glad I gave that talk. It felt so good to connect with you that day, like a small part of me broke through the walls of the prison and escaped briefly. Today is like a mirror image of that day. Today, I want you to understand what it means to win freedom. The feeling of winning freedom is as profound as the pain of losing it. I want you to understand this, because on the road to freedom, we have not yet reached the end. There are more freedoms to fight for, and yes, more work to be done. When I say freedom, I mean freedom that transcends anyone and anywhere that has ever existed. It's going to be great and worth fighting for. I wish you could experience the moment I stepped out of prison and toward freedom, the feeling of being swept by a huge wave of freedom. At that moment, I knew that all these years of hard work, pain and struggle, were worth it. My point is that freedom is worth fighting for. Believe it or not, after so many years in prison, I actually got used to life there, it became my "normal". In order to remain sane and strong, I have to accept what happened to me, accept my situation, and not fight every moment of every day. But there is a danger to this, and that is the danger of complacency. I have found that we may lose our desire for freedom, and we may get used to the shackles on our bodies and even forget that they exist. David Bailey helped me see that, and when we were discussing my talk at this conference, he said, "Ross, you took Bitcoin from 0 to 1, and during your time in prison, we, the whole community, all of you, brought it from 1 to 10." But we also need to go from 10 to 100." He was right. See what a crazy journey the past 14 years have been! When I launched Silk Road, buying a bitcoin for less than a dollar was like change. Can you imagine that now they are worth more than $100,000 each? Back then, there was only one exchange that could buy bitcoin, unless you wanted to go to forums or attend local meetups. Now, every app I download seems to have a built-in wallet that allows me to buy coins with one click. There are dozens of new cryptocurrencies and blockchains, each unique and thousands more that I never had time to learn about. There's decentralized finance (DeFi), Web3, and now there's AI to help me navigate it all. This is crazy! It's like I got into a time capsule in 2013 and now wake up like Rip Van Winkle. When I walked out of prison a few months ago, I had never seen a drone, I hadn't experienced AI, sorry, a virtual reality (VR) headset, I hadn't tried it yet. I've never talked to AI, and it's all rushing to me. Freedom, new technology, and the feeling that I have the future again, it's too much, too much. What a blessing, what a miracle, what a gift it is that I am in prison, and now I can experience this incredible time with you! I felt like I was far behind when it came to new technology, but I began to suspect that maybe all of us felt more or less that way. Now that everything is changing so fast, it's exciting to imagine where it's all going. But the question remains: how do we take the next step? How to go from 10 to 100? Because of this speed, because of this chaos, it's more important than ever to stick to our principles. When everything happens at the same time, when thousands of things pull your attention from all directions, it's easy to lose sight of principles. The principles should be simple and concise. Today, I would like to mention three principles: freedom, decentralization, and solidarity. Yes, you guys get it! Remember these three: freedom, decentralization, and solidarity. Let me...