After Ross Ulbricht, Polymarket users bet on which crypto individuals Trump may pardon

Quick Take

  • Polymarket users are betting on which individuals President Trump could pardon next, including several crypto people.

Users of the decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket are placing bets on which individuals they think U.S. President Donald Trump could pardon next — including several members of the crypto community.

Early bitcoin investor Roger Ver is at the top of the list, with a 32% chance that he gets pardoned, according to Polymarket. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, while not directly related to crypto, comes in at 24%, while whistleblower Edward Snowden has a 24% chance.

Tesla CEO and dogecoin fan Elon Musk also has a 7% chance of a pardon, according to the prediction market.

One prediction market, which amassed over $10 million in total volume, contains a nearly $227,000 bet that Trump will pardon Bankman-Fried within the president's first 100 days in office. In November 2023, Bankman-Fried was charged on seven criminal counts, including wire fraud, and was later sentenced to nearly 25 years in prison for his role in the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. His odds of achieving a presidential pardon sit at 4% on Polymarket.

The same prediction market contained $6 million in trading volume for the bet that Trump would pardon Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, which indeed occurred one day after Trump's inauguration.

Ulbricht pardoned

Ross Ulbricht owned and operated the dark web marketplace Silk Road, which facilitated illicit drug sales and accepted bitcoin as payment, from 2011 until the platform's closure in 2013. In 2015, a New York court sentenced Ulbricht to serve life in prison and ordered him to forfeit nearly $184 million connected to his convictions regarding distributing narcotics, conspiring to distribute narcotics, conspiring to commit money laundering and four other charges.

On his campaign trail for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Trump promised that, if elected, he would make strides for the crypto industry and key players within it. These promises not only included creating a strategic bitcoin reserve and appointing the first-ever crypto-specific White House position, but also pardoning Ulbricht.

Trump signed a "full and unconditional" pardon for Ulbricht on Tuesday, The Block previously reported.

Update: This article was updated to refocus on multiple individuals.


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© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.

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