Ross Ulbricht, the alleged founder of the now-defunct dark website, Silk Road, sold his nonfungible token (NFT) for a whopping $6.20 million worth of Ether (ETH).
Dubbed “Perspective,” the NFT art features Ulbricht’s digital sketch of eyes within an eye and comes as a part of a collection that features the tech entrepreneur’s 10-piece collection of writings and artworks that he made in his life to date. The “Genesis Collection” also includes an animated video developed by audiovisual artist Levitate and a voiceover by Ulbricht about his time in jail.
SuperRare platform kicked off the auction at Art Basel Miami, wherein FreeRossDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) working to free Ulbricht from prison, won the bid. All the proceeds raised from the NFT sale would go towards the Art4Giving fund, a FreeRossDAO-backed trust created to fund his new legal proceedings.
Convicted in 2015 for allegedly running a multimillion-dollar online drug trading operation via dark web Silk Road, Ulbricht pleaded innocence in the case. His defense underscored that Ulbricht was “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the alias responsible for conducting online crimes via Silk Road, but failed to impress the jury.
Later, Ulbricht’s family and supporters established a website, dubbed Free Ross Ulbricht, in his defense to raise funds for his legal proceedings. The website has attracted more than 500,000 signatories.
FreeRossDAO now plans to divide the NFT into ROSS governance tokens and distribute them among donors based on the amount they had contributed to defending Ulbricht. Meanwhile, ROSS holders will also win rights to vote on proposals and participate in preparing the FreeRossDAO guidelines.