On his first day as a free man, Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht thanked President Trump for being a “man of his word” after receiving a full pardon that freed him from life in prison.

Mr. Ulbricht, 40, had been serving a double life sentence with 40 years thrown on top of the sentence after he was convicted in February 2015 for his role in the dark web marketplace where users could anonymously buy or sell drugs and other illicit items with a cryptocurrency like bitcoin. 

“Last night, Donald Trump granted me a full pardon. I was doing life without parole, and I was locked up for more than 11 years. But he let me out. I’m a free man now. So let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word,” Mr. Ulbricht said in a video posted Thursday on X. “Thank you so much, President Trump, for giving me this amazing blessing.”

“I am so, so grateful to have my life back, to have my future back, to have this second chance.”

The president had vowed to issue a pardon during the Libertarian National Convention last May.

“If you vote for me, on Day One, we will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht,” Mr. Trump said to a standing ovation. “We will get him home.”

On Wednesday, in a post on the Truth Social platform, Mr. Trump announced that he had issued an unconditional pardon.

“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,” he said. “The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me. He was given two life sentences plus 40 years. Ridiculous!”

Mr. Ulbricht was serving the life sentence without the possibility of parole on seven counts of distributing narcotics and money laundering conspiracy charges. His case was one of the first Bitcoin-related prosecutions, with the judge noting the “unprecedented” nature of the prosecution.

“The stated purpose [of the Silk Road] was to be beyond the law. In the world you created over time, democracy didn’t exist. You were captain of the ship, the Dread Pirate Roberts,” Judge Katherine Forrest said, using Mr. Ulbricht’s online handle.

“Make no mistake, Ulbricht was a drug dealer and criminal profiteer who exploited people’s addictions and contributed to the deaths of at least six young people,” the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, said in a statement at the time of the sentencing.

Libertarians, cryptocurrency advocates, and drug reformers have long thrown their support behind Mr. Ulbricht, saying that a life sentence without parole for narcotics sales was harsh, that he provided the platform, not the drugs themselves, and had no prior criminal record.

The Silk Road founder has long maintained that he created the platform as an experiment in free markets and cryptocurrency exchange and not to be a drug market online.