Ross Ulbricht, the convicted mastermind of Silk Road, is launching an auction of personal artworks in the form of NFTs through the SuperRare venue. The new artworks, forming the Genesis Collection of Ross Ulbricht, were manufactured during his prison and childhood time. The cumulative number of NFTs is 10, including poetry and pencil drawings. The titles of distinct pieces are “Death,” “Perspective,” “Uncageable,” “Life in a Box,” “The Trial I Saw,” “You Lookin’ at Me?,” “Quicksilver,” “I Hope the War Is Over,” “Dolphin,” and “Mom’s Dae.” The winner of the respective auction will obtain an animation’s NFT having all the artworks of Ross. The respective NFT collection will be curated by Entoptic.
The launch of the NFT collection
Following nine years in jail, Ulbricht has himself undergone and experienced the torment that can be brought about by the prison to the family of a person as well as the relations thereof. He wishes to collect sufficient wealth to assist the kids of the convicts who come to see the incarcerated parents thereof in prison.
A team of investors named FreeRossDAO targets raising adequate funds to be invested in the Genesis collection and expectedly make some contributions in bringing Ulbricht out of life imprisonment via legal proceedings as well as spreading awareness. FreeRossDAO was seeded by PleasrDAO with 240 ETH, and similar contributions will consistently be incorporated by PleasrDAO if the FreeRossDAO is sufficiently paid until it reaches a top undisclosed donation.
On FreeRossDAO’s win in the auction, a split would be done into the Genesis Collection for fractional SROSS, which would be distributed among the donors as per the contribution thereof. The consumers would get governance rights over the tokens as well as Genesis Collection’s fractional parts. After the win, the remaining ETH will be stored in FreeRossDAO governed treasury.
If there are above 4000 latest donors in a DAO, a bulk transfer will be carried out for their distribution, with all Ethereum blockchain’s gas charges being absorbed by the DAO. In the case of losing the auction, the respective funds will get distributed through a Merkle Airdrop, which would cost nearly 0.04 ETH. ArtBasel Miami was the venue for the auction on 4th December 2021, and 666 ETH was the top bid.
Some still take Ulbricht to be a hero
The securities agencies arrested Ulbricht in 2013, a time when a seizure was put by the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) over the online marketplace Silk Road, which adopted Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment option for drugs as well as weapons, with its subsequent functioning as a hidden website operating on Tor to avoid being monitored. His supporters consider him to be the one exposing them to Bitcoin during its early days.
