Ross Ulbricht, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for creating the darknet market Silk Road, is free.

Ulbricht is a freedom fighter to some, and a dangerous criminal to others. The former know Ulbricht as described in Forbes, “a principled libertarian and cypherpunk in the same vein as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto”.

Ulbricht had a theory: that violent drug cartels would have no chance sustaining themselves in a free market environment where the state did not control the use of substances, as non-violent operations would simply outperform the violent ones based on demand.

Most who believe the latter, however, often base their opinion on claims that Ulbricht allegedly attempted to hire a hitman on a former Silk Road administrator, who stood accused of embezzling bitcoin from the site. While Ulbricht’s supporters celebrate, critics are asking: why would an online community so vehemently defend an attempted murderer?

The controversies and outright corruption surrounding Ulbricht’s prosecution should therefore not be forgotten.

The Charges Against Ulbricht

On February 5th 2015, a jury in the Southern District of New York found Ulbricht guilty of exclusively non-violent crimes, including several charges of narcotics distribution, computer hacking, conspiracy to run a criminal enterprise, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The judge sentenced Ulbricht to two life sentences plus forty years without the possibility of parole – almost twice the sentence of the violent Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The alleged murder for hire charges arose out of a different case, filed in May 2013 in Maryland. The indictment alleged that, based on chat logs obtained from the Silk Road site, Ulbricht attempted to murder Curtis Green for stealing bitcoin from the project.

As the chat logs read according to the indictment, Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), the pseudonym attributed to Ulbricht, wrote to another Silk Road user, whom he believed to be a drug kingpin capable of ordering a hitman:

“I’d like to beat him up, [sic] then forced to send the bitcoins he stole back. [sic] like sit him down at his computer and make him do it.”

A day later, the indictment states, DPR allegedly changed his mind, writing: “Can you change the order to execute rather than torture?”

According to the indictment, DPR stated that Green “was on the inside for a while, and now that he’s been arrested, I’m afraid he’ll give up info,” allegedly adding that he had “never killed a man before, but this is the right move in this case.”

A few days later, $40,000 were wired into the hitman’s account, and DPR asked for “proof of death” via video or pictures to send the rest of the payment.

On February 21st 2013, the kingpin informed DPR that Green was dead – “they killed him this weekend,” he wrote, telling him that he had died of asphyxiation, and that the body was completely destroyed to eliminate evidence.

Except the kingpin wasn’t a kingpin. It was DEA Agent Carl Force who, as it would later turn out, liked to engage in a little criminal enterprise himself when granted the opportunity.

A Real Theft And A Fake Murder

During the course of the investigation, Green had been cooperating with law enforcement, giving DEA Agent Carl Force and Secret Service Agent Shaun Bridges access to the Silk Road site.

During one of law enforcement’s sessions on Silk Road, a series of “sizeable thefts” occurred on the site, which would later be traced back to Bridges, who plead guilty to stealing $350,000 in bitcoin at the time of the theft, or $800,000 at the time of his guilty plea.

The account in question, operated by Bridges and in consultation with Force, had received “no less than 20,000 bitcoin”, according to the complaint. Force, posing as the drug kingpin “Nob”, then orchestrated the fake hit and, together with Bridges, faked Green’s death.

Force went on to create the fake identity “Death from Above” to extort $250,000 from DPR, stating: “I know that you had something to do with [Green’s] disappearance and death. Just wanted to let you know that I’m coming for you. […] You are a dead man. Don’t think you can elude me.”

Bridges was sentenced to 24 months in prison to be served consecutively to a 71-month sentence he received for a similar crime in 2015, while Force was sentenced to 78 months in prison. Information on the corrupt agents was never made available to be used in Ulbricht’s defense.

Who Is Dread Pirate Roberts

Dread Pirate Roberts, the pseudonym attributed to Ulbricht, is taken from the 1973 novel “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman, depicting an identity that is assumed by multiple characters. The identity Dread Pirate Roberts, as written by Goldman, is shared between pirates to intimidate opponents, and passed on in secret.

In the course of the public proceedings of the case, evidence mounted that Silk Road’s DPR was not solely operated by Ulbricht. In a conversation with former friend Richard Bates, who helped Ulbricht set up the Silk Road site, Ulbricht responded with “glad that’s not my problem anymore” when made aware of news coverage concerning the site.

During the trial, prosecutors attempted to stop the defense from questioning another law enforcement officer, special agent Jared Der-Yeghiayan of the Department of Homeland Security, who believed that DPR was actually Mark Kapeles – the former Mt. Gox CEO, who was later convicted for falsifying Mt. Gox records and inflating the exchange’s supply by tens of millions.

Der-Yeghiayan had referred to an exclusive interview with DPR in Forbes, in which the pseudonymous Silk Road operator had stated that “he hadn’t actually created the Silk Road, but instead had befriended its creator and later acquired the site from him.”

According to Der-Yeghiayan, DPR’s writing sounded very much like that of his suspect, Mark Kapeles – and Der-Yeghiayan is not the only one alleging that DPR sounded like someone else. As former Dark Wallet developer Amir Taaki stated:

“Years ago, when I messaged the Silk Road, I had a conversation with the DPR – a very personal conversation where he was [talking] about how one day he hopes to be on the outside struggling for freedom together. You know, not having to hide his identity. One year [or] two years later when I messaged the guy — I’m pretty certain it was not the same guy. The tone was completely different. He had no recollection of the events that happened before, and his attitude to me was in stark contrast to the exuberant and wordy DPR of the early days.”

This argument was further backed by a pseudonymous Silk Road vendor, who stated that “there were ‘at least two other people—if not three’—who were administering Silk Road.” Der-Yeghiayan corroborates this belief in an email ten days before Ulbricht’s arrest, stating that “we contributed to the other two admins getting away.”

Silk Road employee Andrew Jones, who had established a ‘secret handshake’ with Ulbricht in 2012 to confirm his identity, did not believe that the late DPR was Ulbricht, either.

According to court documents, Jones would ask DPR for a book recommendation, to which the correct answer would be “anything by Rothbard” – an answer which DPR did not provide when asked a year later.

To add intellectual insult to operational injury, someone had logged in to DPR’s account six weeks after Ulbricht’s arrest, who was in federal custody at the time – which may have been the corrupt agents, who had administrative access to the site, or another DPR all together.

As stated by Green himself: “and to everybody that says ‘were there multiple DPRs’, absolutely there was – I was DPR once. So if I was, who else was?”

Regarding the murder-for-hire charges, Green stated that he did not believe Ulbricht would have ordered a hit on him. As Green stated in 2017:

“Ross Ulbricht got a raw deal. There is so much more on the Silk Road story than people know, and I can’t yet talk about it. I don’t believe Ross is dangerous or that it’s in his character to order a hit on anyone. He should never have gotten that horrible sentence.”

To cut to the chase: yes, Ross Ulbricht operated Silk Road. No, Ross Ulbricht was likely not the only person with access to the DPR account. Ross Ulbricht was never convicted of the murder-for-hire charges. The case was dismissed in 2018 with prejudice, meaning that it could never be filed again.

For all we know, we are all Dread Pirate Roberts.

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The second half of 2024 was a milestone period for the TRON network. It achieved record-breaking performance across key metrics, saw $TRX reach all-time highs, and experienced a surge in ecosystem activity driven by memecoin activity. Let’s break it all down.

Key Highlights

• TRON led in the Price-to-Revenue ratio, maintaining a top-three position throughout the period.

• Fundamental blockchain metrics demonstrated TRON’s strength and competitiveness.

• A successful “vampire attack” on Solana attracted significant attention to the TRON ecosystem.

$TRX Reaches a New All-Time High

The native token of the TRON blockchain demonstrated significant growth in early December, setting a new all-time high at $0.416. As of early 2025, the token’s price is trading at $0.225.

At this price level, 94% of wallets holding $TRX are in profit.

Historically, $TRX has shown consistent upward price momentum. The token’s value generally increases over time, with major price drops occurring only after exponential growth cycles, which typically happen every four years. Importantly, the price has never returned to the previous lows of earlier cycles.

This price behavior sets $TRX apart from many other large-cap altcoins, as holders of $TRX tend to remain in profit for a significant portion of their holding period.

TRON Leads Across Plenty of Fundamental Metrics

The driving force behind TRON’s price behavior lies in its blockchain metrics. Among these, the price-to-revenue ratio stands out as a crucial indicator for fundamental analysis.

Notably, at the start of the second half of the year, before the native token’s price surge, TRON led the market with the lowest price-to-revenue ratio of 26.7. (The lower the ratio, the higher the project’s revenue relative to its market capitalization.) While such a ratio is fairly common in the technology sector of the stock market, it is considered exceptional in the cryptocurrency market.

After the exponential price growth, the ratio has shifted, but TRON still remains among the leaders in this metric.

More than that, TRON has emerged as the most cost-efficient L1 blockchain in 2024, spending just $0.85 for every $1 generated in fee revenue. This stands in contrast to Aptos, which spent over 300 times more on incentives than it earned in fees. Bitcoin, with its Proof-of-Work model, spent $80B on miner incentives while generating $6.6B in transaction fees.

Additionally, in terms of absolute revenue, TRON ranks second after Ethereum. Ethereum, TRON, and Solana are the undisputed leaders in revenue generation among blockchains, accounting for over 95% of the total revenue generated by projects in this category.

The TRON network has solidified its leadership in the number of addresses interacting with stablecoins. TRON is the most popular network for users transferring stablecoins between centralized exchanges. This success can be attributed to several factors:

• High reliability: The network is proven both over time and by the volume of assets it handles.

• Cost-efficiency: TRON provides one of the most cost-efficient solutions for stablecoin transactions, making it an attractive option for users across various demographics.

• Broad support: The network is supported by nearly all centralized exchanges.

• Unique resource mechanism: TRON’s unique dPOS model, coupled with its Energy and Bandwidth resource system, offers cost savings and efficiency. This design is highly appealing for both individual users and payments platforms.

• Active Network Participation: TRON dPOS Staking & Voting system keep retail & investors involved in the Network from both technological and investment reasons. 

In terms of stablecoin transfers, TRON ranks third, with a total of 3 trillion USDT in transfers for the second half of 2024—just slightly behind Ethereum and Solana.

In the second half of 2024, 5 billion USDT were minted and burned on the TRON network, resulting in a stablecoin volume that remained relatively unchanged despite minor fluctuations.

Returning to the overall metrics, TRON ranks among the top three in terms of active addresses for the second half of 2024.

Additionally, during this period, TRON ranks among the top three blockchains in terms of transaction volume.

As for the Total Value Locked (TVL) metric, in the second half of 2024, TRON lost some ground to BSC and the rapidly growing Bitcoin ecosystem, driven by restaking protocols. However, it still remains in the top five.

Thus, TRON is a leader among blockchains across several key metrics, thanks to its strong product-market fit in the stablecoin segment.

However, there was one highly popular market segment where TRON did not achieve significant success in the past half-year: the memecoin sector. Well, in the second half of 2024, Justin Sun and his team decided to make up for lost ground and managed to pleasantly surprise the market.

The Memecoin Summer on TRON

By mid-2024, it became clear that pump.fun on the Solana blockchain — a platform where anyone could launch their own token in just a few clicks and almost for free — was the most prominent and successful project of the cycle. It had already generated massive revenue and attracted significant attention. As a result, on August 13, a similar platform called SunPump was launched on the TRON network. Its name was a nod to its origin, and it was built on the AMM protocol SunSwap, with its smart contracts actively powering the platform. Despite initial skepticism, SunPump quickly proved to be serious competition for pump.fun, especially in its first month of operation.

In fact, the meme tokens launched in the early days on SunPump surpassed those previously launched on pump.fun.

Within a month, the pace of token launches on the platform and their average market performance naturally stabilized, reflecting a shift toward a more sustainable growth phase.

This trend is not uncommon in the crypto industry, where the “first-mover” effect often gives established platforms an initial edge. However, this also provides an opportunity for new platforms, like TRON’s SunPump, to innovate further and differentiate themselves from older, more familiar platforms as they continue to evolve.

Illicit Activity Mitigation

In August 2024, TRON, Tether and TRM announced the establishment of The T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU) – a сollaboration aimed at reducing illicit activity in the blockchain industry. In just six months, they managed to freeze over $100 million in criminal assets globally, marking a significant milestone in its fight against cryptocurrency-related financial crime. The TRON network, in particular, experienced the most significant decline in illicit activity, with volume dropping by $6 billion and the proportion of such activity nearly halving. The unit has worked closely with law enforcement agencies worldwide to disrupt criminal networks involved in money laundering, investment fraud, blackmail, terrorism financing, and other serious financial crimes.

New Year, New Challenges for the Ecosystem

One promising market narrative TRON has only begun to explore is the integration of AI technologies. With the innovative track record of Justin Sun and his team, 2025 promises to be a transformative year for TRON in this space. Building on their success with fair launch platforms for meme tokens, we are confident they will introduce groundbreaking applications or creatively adapt existing solutions to position TRON as a leader in the AI-crypto synergy.

Moreover, we are already seeing the first signs from TRON DAOitself. On January 7, the official Twitter (X) account of TRON DAO posted a poll asking users which use cases they find most interesting for AI technologies within the crypto industry.

Just a few days later, they reposted a post from the account @JustinMoonAI – a community project featuring an English-speaking AI agent who hosts a 24/7 livestream, interacting with visitors on the website. The agent’s name and some aspects of their appearance clearly reference the founder of the TRON blockchain.

Additionally, on January 10, the TRON blockchain became available as an interaction network in the EternalAI protocol, a multi-chain platform for launching tokenized AI agents.

Output

The TRON network is one of the earliest blockchain technologies launched by human civilization. Over its more than 6 years of existence, it has established itself as a reliable decentralized infrastructure and has become the go-to solution for stablecoin transfers – arguably the most significant use case in the crypto industry. The charismatic figure of Justin Sun has given the project high recognition and visibility, and since Sun is an independent player in the market, it provides certain freedoms in project development. For instance, Justin Sun was able to initiate the creation of SunPump, leading it to a brief yet notable success. We believe that the initiative and persistence of the ecosystem’s leader will continue to pave the way for its success, and the market clearly agrees with our optimistic outlook, consistently raising the blockchain’s valuation through its native coin.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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The Silk Road founder received a commuted sentenced from US President Donald Trump on Jan. 21 after being sentenced to life in prison in 2015.

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