Ross Ulbricht was arrested at 29. Now, he's 40. He faces a double life sentence plus 40 years with no possibility of parole for creating the Silk Road, a dark web drug marketplace that facilitated $1.2 billion in bitcoin-denominated transactions.
"I'll spend the next few decades in this cage. Then, sometime later this century, I'll grow old and die. I'll finally leave prison, but I'll be in a body bag," he told an interviewer at a 2021 virtual blockchain conference.
But a second chance might be coming for Ulbricht, from an unlikely savior.