Ulbricht-Linked Wallets Lose $12M in Crypto Trading Error

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Ross Ulbricht-Linked Wallets Lose $12 Million in Crypto Trading Blunder

Written byAaron S.,

Editor-In-Chief

Last Updated: January 31, 2025

Key Takeaways

Ulbricht-linked wallets lost $12 million after mispricing ROSS tokens on a DEX, allowing trading bots to buy low and sell for profit;
A setup error caused a 90% crash in the ROSS token, wiping out 40% of its supply;
Despite the losses, the wallets still hold 10% of the ROSS supply, valued at around $200,000.

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Crypto wallets connected to Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road marketplace, lost $12 million due to a misstep while trading a fan-made token called ROSS.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence shared the details in a January 30 post on X, explaining how the mistake led to a sudden drop in the token’s value.

The issue began when Ulbricht, or someone managing his wallets, set up a liquidity pool at the wrong price on the decentralized exchange (DEX) Raydium

RAY $3.58

. This allowed a trading bot to buy $1.5 million worth of the token (5% of its total supply) at a low price and immediately sell it for a profit.

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The same mistake happened again, resulting in a $10.5 million loss or about 35% of the token’s supply.

Arkham explained that instead of using the correct liquidity setup, the user created a pool using the wrong market-making method. This error made it easy for another bot to buy and sell the tokens, pushing ROSS down by 90%.

However, after losing 40% of the total supply, the wallets still hold around 10%, worth approximately $200,000.

The wallets involved in the transactions are listed as donation addresses on FreeRoss.org, a campaign run by Ulbricht’s family. They had received 50% of the ROSS token supply from its developer but lost a large portion due to these trading errors.

Recently, Ulbricht received a donation from the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken

$566.47M

. How much was it? Read the full story.