Founder of now-defunct illegal website set to launch Bitcoin NFT collection from prison; here’s more info about this development
Silk Road: Dark force on the Dark Web
For a considerable amount of us, when we hear the phrase Silk Road, we imagine the ancient trade route from China in the Far East, all the way to Europe. For centuries, the ancient Silk Road helped China trade and spread its influence. Eventually, the maritime Silk Road was created to support trading and influence, and it spread as far as the Middle East and Eastern Africa.
This piece isn’t for you if you’re here for wholesome content on ancient trading routes. Today, we’ll look at the website known as Silk Road and how it helped facilitate unspeakable activities.
Silk Road was a darknet platform infamously used to trade contrabands, including drugs, ammunition, and outlawed substances, in exchange for Bitcoin. For a while, Silk Road was a hub for human trafficking, and at the center of it all was Bitcoin.
Looking back, the Silk Road did a considerable amount of damage to the reputation of cryptocurrencies and associated technologies, and in 2022 almost a decade after the shutdown of the website, we’re still trying to convince the world that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are a force for good, not evil.
The individual behind the Silk Road was Ross Ulbricht, and this lad plans to launch a second NFT project.
Ross Ulbricht NFT collection and plans
Ross Ulbricht is the infamous character behind the Silk Road, and before the site’s eventual shutdown in October 2013, it saw millions of dollars in transactions at its peak.
As mentioned earlier, Ulbricht and his team, through Silk Road, helped Bitcoin gain a considerable amount of bad press that haunts the entire cryptocurrency space.
Ross Ulbricht is currently serving a double life sentence plus an additional 40 years without the possibility of parole for his involvement in Silk Road.
The “Ross Ulbricht Growth Collection” includes four physical oil paintings, 318 hand-drawn frames, and five NFTs stored on the Bitcoin blockchain.
According to a statement by Ulbricht, “I have put my heart, soul, and mind into this collection, and I am really looking forward to unveiling it to you.” This will not be the first NFT collection by the Silk Road founder.
Ross Ulbricht: Bitcoin Cult Here?
Since Ulbricht’s conviction in 2013, he has become a cult hero for certain people in and outside the NFT space. His first NFT drop on the Ethereum blockchain brought massive gains and raised the equivalent of $6.2 million during a December 2021 auction in Basel, Switzerland.
Amazingly, the winning bid for that NFT was by “FreeRossDAO,” an autonomous organization created with the aim of pooling money towards helping free Ulbricht from prison.
