Ross Ulbricht, the imprisoned founder of Silk Road, sold his first NFT for 1,446 ETH. Ulbricht created the Dark Web marketplace for which he was convicted and jailed. It wasn’t until a few months ago that he came to know about NFTs. All his supporters came together to create a decentralized group named FreeRossDAO and purchased his first NFT.
SuperRare made the sale of the pencil sketch titled Perspective and sold it for approximately $6.2 million. According to Ulbricht, his artwork depicts his story from being a toddler to going behind bars at 29 years of age. He plans to use the NFT money to get released from jail. Using a graphite pencil, he made this sketch while being in prison. The pictures of the original sketch have been circling on Twitter.
The 10-piece NFT series by Ulbricht is called the Genesis Collection. All those contributing towards the auction will also be getting returns.
As per the FreeRossDAO website, “Once the bid to acquire the Genesis Collection succeeds, contributors will receive $ROSS tokens in return for their contributions pro-rata, serving as both fractional pieces of the Genesis Collection as well as FreeRossDAO’s governance token. Holders of $ROSS can vote on proposals and contribute to the direction of FreeRossDAO.”
The collection consists of artworks and writings depicting different phases of Ulbricht’s life. Also, it has an animated video by Levitate about Ulbricht’s time in prison with his voiceover. NFTs are digital collectibles whose ownership can be transferred and locked on the blockchain network.
FreeRossDAO set up a donor-advised trust called Art4Giving Fund as a legal brand to finance the court proceedings. Also, its purpose is to create awareness about the case among the masses. Most of the funds will go to this cause.
Ulbricht was jailed because his Dark Web marketplace, Silk Road, allowed purchasing anything, including banned substances, via Bitcoin.
