LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht has a message for the crypto community: if you want to maintain your freedom, you must remain unified and decentralized, and you must be prepared for a struggle.
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In a heart-felt keynote speech closing out Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas on Thursday, Ulbricht, addressing the public in-person for the first time since being released from prison in January, shared a story to illustrate his three guiding principles — freedom, decentralization and unity.
Ulbricht explained that, in the early days of the Silk Road, he wanted to grow hallucinogenic mushrooms to stock the darknet marketplace with, so he rented a remote cabin. The cabin, he said, was infested with wasps. He set out to deal with the wasps, using a trick his father had taught him that involved trapping the wasps’ nests under a towel.
“My heart was pounding,” Ulbricht said. “I selected the nest that was furthest from the others, because I didn’t know if the other nests would come and sting me, spread out the towel, got as close as I could — ready to flee if I had to — but when I wrapped up the nest, nothing happened. It was as if the other wasps didn’t even notice.”
Ulbricht said that the wasps were strong because they were free: “It was impossible to keep track of so many individual wasps, a sting could come from any direction. They were strong because they were decentralized, across seven nests.”
But, Ulbricht said, the wasps were ultimately weak because they were not unified, and did not react when their fellow wasps were taken down.
“Had a single wasp dared to come sting me when I reached for that first nest, I would have fled … but they didn’t. Thank god you are not wasps,” Ulbricht said.
Before being pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump in January — the result of a promise Trump made on the campaign trail in 2024 — Ulbricht spent 12 years behind bars. His speech on Thursday marked the 10-year anniversary, to the day, of a New York judge sentencing the then-31-year-old Ulbricht to two life sentences, plus 40 years, for owning and operating the dark net marketplace.
During his keynote speech, Ulbricht, who has been free for four months, still seemed buoyant with his newfound freedom. In a video montage ahead of his appearance on stage, clips of Ulbricht experiencing life outside prison — traveling, surfing, spending time with his wife — played on screen, each showing a beaming Ulbricht.
“Winning your freedom feels as amazing as losing it feels awful,” Ulbricht said, crediting the crypto community for advocating for his release. “I’m free, and it’s because of you. You made this moment possible…Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
After more than a decade behind bars, Ulbricht likened himself to Rip van Winkle, admitting that he was overwhelmed with all the technological advancements since he went to prison.
“There are dozens of new cryptocurrencies and blockchains, each one fascinating in its own right, and thousands more I’ll never have time to learn about. There’s DeFi and Web3 and AI to help me navigate it all. It’s nuts,” Ulbricht said. “I mean, just a few months ago, when I walked out of prison, I’d never seen a drone … It’s all hitting me at once, freedom, the new technology, the fact that I have a future again.”
Ulbricht closed by telling the audience about gangs and factions in prison, saying that he quickly came to understand that the prison wardens like inmates to be divided.
“The only times I saw the wardens show respect to the prisoners was when we were united,” Ulbricht said. “Those that oppose decentralization and freedom love it when we’re divided, I promise you, so stay united. So long as we can agree that we deserve freedom, and that decentralization is how we secure it, then we can be united…stay true to these principles and the future is ours.”
