Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road: Crypto communities should have three principles, namely freedom, decentralization and unity In his closing speech at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, used his experience of clearing beehives as a teenager to illustrate the three principles that crypto communities should have: freedom, decentralization and unity. He recalled that "wasps are strong because of their dispersion, but fail because of their lack of unity", emphasizing that "opponents most want to see us split". Ulbricht was pardoned by President Trump in January 2025, ending his 12-year prison sentence. In his speech, he thanked the crypto community for speaking out for his release, and frankly admitted that after being released from prison, he faced the impact of new technologies such as DeFi and Web3 like a "modern version of Rip Van Winkle". Data shows that during the operation of the dark web market Silk Road he founded from 2011 to 2013, the volume of Bitcoin transactions accounted for 6% of the total transactions on the network at that time. View quoted note →