Donald Trump stings pardoned Silk Road founder with historic change to crypto markets

Donald Trump's major crypto announcement could sting for recently pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht.

The President giveth and the President taketh away, as Donald Trump has just slighted pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. Ulbricht was one of over 1,600 people who the POTUS pardoned after returning to the Oval Office, and while Ulbricht had been serving a life sentence for creating the dark web marketplace, the President stuck to a promise he'd made on the campaign trail about freeing him.

While Trump was said to be working on a supposed cryptocurrency reserve that would serve like something of a modern Fort Knox, he's finally put it into place by signing his "Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile" executive order on March 6.

Although it's unclear exactly how a Bitcoin reserve will benefit the American people, White House crypto czar David Sacks has explained its importance on X. With the March 7 White House crypto summit expected to explain things more, it comes as cryptocurrency has seen a recent boom.

Despite a tumultuous start to 2025 and it looking like Bitcoin was going to fall short of its lofty projections, Trump's plans to make the USA a crypto superpower have seen prices climb once again.

For those confused about where all this new crypto will magically come from, a fact sheet on what the executive order reveals a major source. The White House confirms: "The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve will be capitalized with bitcoin owned by the Department of Treasury that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings.

“Other agencies will evaluate their legal authority to transfer any bitcoin owned by those agencies to the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve."

This was backed up by Sacks, who added: "The Reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. This means it will not cost taxpayers a dime."

This is bad news for Ulbricht, who might’ve been trying to seek some of his $6.5 billion Bitcoin that was seized following his arrest. In January 2025, Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg denied a motion to block Ulbricht forfeiting 69,370 Bitcoin, which enabled the Justice to sell the $6.5 billion asset. Importantly, the seizure of the Silk Road Bitcoin is crypto's biggest federal seizure ever.

Ulbricht isn't the only one set to lose out here, with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried also set to have his funds added to the pot.

The US government is said to own around 200,000 Bitcoin on its own, although Sacks admits there's never been an official audit. Stocking the reserve with seized cryptocurrency ensures that the taxpayer isn't footing the bill on the President's latest brainwave.

Still, an audit is now due to take place, with Sacks concluding: "Premature sales of bitcoin have already cost U.S. taxpayers over $17 billion in lost value. Now the federal government will have a strategy to maximize the value of its holdings."

We're not quite sure what the point of having a crypto stockpile that never gets sold is, but check out the crypto summit if you want to know more.