There's always double standards when it comes to the law and especially when those 'white collar' criminals tend to get little or lesser punishments or can even buy their way out of jail, but I think these cases are a little different for a couple of reasons and I don't think Ross was treated harsher just because he was using bitcoin. Ross created a site to directly facilitate the sale of drugs, not to mention he was also charged with money laundering I believe. Selling drugs is always going to get you more jail time than money laundering anyway, but I think they gave him a very overly harsh sentence just to make an example out of him. He was also charged as a drug kingpin as well I think which comes with a more severe sentance. It will be interesting to see how much time El Chapo gets when his trial gets underway shortly. If it's less than Ross' then that really will be a huge double standard. He will probably also get life though.