Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht spent 10 years in prison after being sentenced to double life imprisonment by US authorities in 2013.

On October 2, Ulbricht said he had been in prison for more than a decade and feared he would spend the rest of his life "behind concrete walls and locked doors." He stated that all he could do now was "pray for mercy."

Silk Road began in 2011 and was run by Ulbricht from a personal laptop under the username "Dread Pirate Roberts". Known as the first modern darknet market, Silk Road's payment system was based on Bitcoin (BTC).

However, on October 1, 2023, the laptop was seized by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Ulbricht was convicted in a US federal court in 2015 on various charges related to Silk Road operations. He was sentenced to two life sentences with no possibility of parole.

According to court documents in the case, the Silk Road site made sales worth 9,519,664 Bitcoins (BTC) and received commissions of 600,000 Bitcoins (BTC) between February 2011 and July 2013.

At the time the court documents were published, this equated to approximately $1.2 billion in sales and $80 million in commissions.

Ulbricht's case attracted widespread attention, with many calling for mercy to be shown to the website's founder.

More than 250 organizations supported the calls and half a million people signed a virtual petition to release Ulbricht, according to a website fighting for justice for Ulbricht. It has also found great support among the crypto and Bitcoin communities.

However, despite the strong wave of support for Ulbricht, there are also many internet users who think that the sentences given to the Silk Road founder are unfair.

One user stated that Ulbricht allegedly hired hitmen to kill several people, but that these accusations were not officially leveled against Ulbricht and were merely a