Wallets Tied to Ross Ulbricht Lost $12M Worth of Meme Coins After Accidentally Selling Them at the Wrong Price

Since the blunder, the ROSS token is now up more than 700%.

Wallets linked to Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the darknet market Silk Road, lost an estimated $12 million in meme coins after accidentally selling them at the wrong price, an incident that ultimately led to a surge in the value of the ROSS token.

Two wallet addresses associated with Ulbricht were reported to have received 50% of the token supply from the developer of pump.fun token, ROSS, according to blockchain analysis firm Arkham. The addresses are mentioned on the donation site FreeRoss.org, which is operated by Ulbricht's family to support his release from prison.

Following Ulbricht's release from prison after being pardoned by President Trump on Jan. 22, a meme coin named ROSS was created in his honor. The token has since experienced a remarkable surge, rising by more than 735% in the past 24 hours, as reported by DEX Screener.

On Jan. 30, the wallets, which held 50% of the ROSS token supply, attempted to provide liquidity on Raydium but accidentally sold 5% of the pump.fun supply at a price significantly lower than the current market value, "nuking the price" in the process.

A passing MEV bot quickly intervened, snatching up the tokens, which were valued at $1.5 million at the time, and selling them into the existing pool. MEV bots, short for maximal extractable value bots, are deployed to identify and capitalize on profitable opportunities in the market, carrying out trading activities automatically without missing a beat.

Undeterred by the initial loss, the operator of the Ross Ulbricht-linked wallets made another attempt, intending to add single-sided liquidity to sell the meme coins passively. However, they inadvertently created a pool with Raydium Constant-Product Market Maker instead of Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker, which again resulted in selling the tokens at the wrong price.

This time, the mistake was even more costly, leading to the loss of approximately 35% of the Ross Ulbricht token supply, which was promptly acquired by another MEV bot. The bot proceeded to sell the tokens for over $600,000, causing the meme coin's price to drop by around 90%. The wallets are reported to still hold about 10% of the token supply, valued at around $200,000.

Despite the massive sell-off, the ROSS token has managed to recover significantly. At the time of writing, the token has experienced a gain of up to 735% in the past day. It is currently trading at a price of $0.0104, with a trading volume of $14.8 million.

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