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I had no idea this was a campaign promise. Why? I don’t understand.
Crypto currency proponents benefit from the existence of dark net marketplaces because they are some of the main places for the non-speculative use of crypto currencies. I think Ross and his pardon represent a sort-of metaphor in crypto-currency proponents' eyes for the government's toleration of these dark net crypto marketplaces.
Wouldn't be surprised if he is sitting on a billion dollars of hidden crypto somewhere.
It would have to be bitcoin, which isn't very hidden
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If you meant Trump, it's not hidden, they released a Trump meme coin and the rug pull was after the inauguration timed with the release of the Melania meme coin, though entirely speculatively makes more sense for the investors to be foreign governments buying influence less obviously than the last Trump administration like Saudi Arabia hiring his son in law.
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* Ulbricht's conviction became a cause célèbre in American libertarian circles.

* In May 2024, candidate Donald Trump said that if re-elected President, he would commute Ulbricht's sentence on his first day in office

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht

I doubt Trump cares about Ulbricht as much as he cares (for whatever reason) about the continued support of various American libertarians (Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and various crypto elites).

While he has made many promises this is significant for being one that he has kept.

RFK Jr is definitely not a libertarian (even compared to someone mainstream like Gary Johnson or Jared Polis), he supports strong state intervention in many areas of the economy and society
It's odd because libertarian candidates usually only garner 1% to 3% of the votes. It does appear that there are a lot of libertarians that vote Republican because of the stigma third parties have, though. As someone who often votes for libertarian candidates, I can't understand it. Republicans are about as libertarian as a cheese sandwich.
Trump went around to a huge number of niche communities and promised to fix their core concerns in exchange for their support. The crypto and libertarian communities are obsessed with freeing Ulbricht. It was honestly a brilliant strategy, and probably the reason he won. Ironic that an authoritarian fascist was able to get elected by enlisting the help of anti-authoritarian communities with a single issue promise.
It’s not ironic at all. The MAGA movement is really similar to how Mussolini came to power.

The campaign against barbarians (Steve Miller’s) crusade, Elons “not enough white babies” stuff, sucking up to the church (Vatican City is a Mussolini scheme), aspirations for conquest of Greenland and Panama, etc are all analogous to the maga playbook.

Most people are clueless. There are idiots who think they are getting $1 eggs next week. Riling up weirdos like libertarians lets the movement punch above their weight.

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>Trump went around to a huge number of niche communities and promised to fix their core concerns in exchange for their support

Very interesting insight, thank you for sharing it. Do you happen to know other examples as well?

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Unfortunately you could level the same type of name calling towards Democrats. It's now public record they colluded with all the major media outlets, coerced big tech to censor and debank opponents, imprisoned whistleblowers, violated bodily autonomy with unconstitutional mandates, weaponized the courts to conduct lawfare, and now issued an unprecedented number of pre-emptive pardons for unspecified crimes committed by Fauci, Hunter Biden, et al.

I remember when the Democrats were the anti-war party, but Biden was escalating the Ukraine war in the final days of his presidency, and celebrated Dick Cheney's endorsement of Kamala Harris. Crazy how things have changed so much. The left unanimously viewed Bush and Cheney as obviously psychopathic war criminals, and now almost all the Neocons have jumped over to the Democrats. The left used to be extremely skeptical of globalization as evident by the Seattle WTO Protests, mass immigration as evident by Bernie Sanders' comments on its effect on workers' wages, and Big Pharma's perverse incentives to keep people sick and regularly consuming drugs. Yet the media has utterly psyop'd the progressives... it's kinda disturbing.

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In 2016 John McAffee tried to run for president as a libertarian candidate, RIP.
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> Ironic that an authoritarian fascist was able to get elected by enlisting the help of anti-authoritarian communities with a single issue promise.

Ironic? It's the oldest trick in the book bro

I am active in libertarian circles and Ulbricht was a cause celebre. The 2024 election was a game of inches, and many libertarians I know voted Trump purely on this issue. It is possible this was a key way Trump eked out a victory.
Libertarians are very hard to take seriously because of shit like this. Nothing about Donald Trump is Libertarian.
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because the crypto bros love him
who else will buy new treasury DOGE coins?
It's a trite thing to say, but when it comes to Trump it fits the pattern of inside dealing ... I'm guessing he personally will profit from this somehow / someone promised a donation / money.
To the libertarians.