Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht Loses $12 Million In Crypto Blunder

Recently pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht lost $12 million in a crypto blunder, causing the ROSS token to plunge 90%, according to Arkham Intelligence.

Ulbricht Lost $12M On Pump.fun

Ulbricht, or someone with access to his wallets, “accidentally nuked the price of a pumpfun coin” called ROSS while attempting to add liquidity on the decentralized exchange (DEX) Raydium, said blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence on X. The ROSS coin was launched after Ulbricht ’s release from prison. 

“Because he initialized the liquidity pool at the wrong price, $1.5M of the token (5% supply) was instantly taken by a MEV Bot, then sold into the existing pool,” Arkham added.

The tokens quickly became available for trading at a lower price. The maximal extractable value (MEV) bot took advantage of this, buying them immediately and selling them for a profit. MEV bots are known for quick scans of profitable investments and capitalizing on them.

Meanwhile, the Ulbricht -linked wallet made the same mistake again, losing another $10.5 million, or about 35% of the supply, according to Arkham.

“Ross tried to add single-sided liquidity to sell the coins off passively, but accidentally created a pool with Raydium CPMM, Constant-Product Market Maker, instead of CLMM Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker,” Arkham reported.

The MEV bot immediately purchased the tokens and sold them for more than $600,000, leading to a 90% drop in the value of ROSS.

ROSS is trading at around 1 cent, with a 700% increase over the last day, according to DEX Screener.

Arkham flagged both wallet addresses, which are listed for donations on FreeRoss.org, a campaign led by Ulbricht’s family to support his release from prison. Ulbricht’s Solana donation address got 50% of the ROSS supply from the developer.

Despite losing 40% of the supply, Arkham said the wallet addresses still hold 10% of the ROSS token supply, valued at around $200,000.

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