Today I learned that Ross Ulbricht has a Steem account
The things that you stumble across when sifting through old posts can be interesting and surprising.
As shown in the beneficiaries from the linked post by @thoth.test, I was reminded today that Ross Ulbricht has a Steem account (@rossulbricht).
Here's the verification Tweet from 2016:
I voted for the original post, so I guess I knew this back in 2016, but it had totally slipped my mind until today when @thoth.test reminded me.
100% of rewards this post's author rewards are being directed to @null for burning.
Do we have to know him?
Same question.
Mine is a bit different:
Who is Ross Ulbricht? 🤭
Ah, sorry, US-Centric, I suppose. He was the operator of one of the first bitcoin market places, Silk Road. He (aka Dread Pirate Roberts) was arrested and sentenced to life in prison in 2013 because the site was widely used for drug trafficking with Bitcoin.
So, in 2016, he was in jail and the Steem account was actually launched by his mom. She was running a "Free Ross" campaign, under the argument that a life sentence without possibility of parole was excessively harsh for the crimes that he had been convicted for. As-of January, 2025, however, Ulbricht has been pardoned and released from prison, so - presumably, the account would be his today, and not his mom's.
cc: @event-horizon, @chriddi
P.S. the Steem Curation Extension is now approved in the Chrome Store. I'll probably write a post about it this weekend.
Thanks for the explanation.
I also wondered why Thoth was voting for a 7 year old post. Then I remembered that Thoth is supposed to be part of your extended reward concept. Did I understand that correctly?
Very nice. Then I can soon install this permanently. Although this was not the problem with Chrome-based browsers. Rather Firefox is very "forgetful" with the dev extensions.
I read your last post about the extension with great interest, of course, but didn't get round to replying. I think your current changes are very good and I'm looking forward to the endurance test.
Yes, it is part of the extended reward concept. Thoth doesn't actually vote for the inactive posts, but it highlights them in its own post and then shares beneficiary rewards with the authors that it finds. In this manner, quality posts can get resurfaced multiple times across the years and they can keep generating rewards for the author each time it happens.
Promises made, promises kept. DJT announced Ulbricht's pardon during the election campaign and implemented it during his first days in office.
Ulbricht was given two life sentences + 40 years because he founded the platform. According to this, every club and disco owner would have to go to prison. Drugs are traded everywhere.
Ulbricht was made an example of at the time as a warning to anyone who, as a platform operator, does not store user data and/or does not hand it over to investigating authorities.