Ross Ulbricht Loses $12 Million on Pump.fun

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht lost $12 million on Pump.fun while attempting to liquidate donated ROSS tokens. He received only $600,000 for these assets, although he still retains 10% of the supply.

This incident illustrates how much the crypto space has changed since Ulbricht was last active. Compared to the Silk Road, Pump.fun and meme coins are new paradigm of speed and chaos.

Ulbricht’s Rude Awakening on Pump.fun

According to blockchain analysis firm Arkham Intelligence, Ross Ulbricht just lost $12 million on Pump.fun. Ulbricht, founder of the Silk Road, became a popular figure among the crypto community due to his passion for Bitcoin and his decade-long imprisonment.

After Donald Trump pardoned him upon taking office, community figures began donating money to support his reintegration into society.

One of these donations illustrates just how much the crypto space has changed in the last ten years. An anonymous developer created a ROSS meme coin on the Pump.fun launchpad and gave Ulbricht half the supply.

However, when trying to liquidate it, he unintentionally cratered its value with disastrous consequences.

“Ross Ulbricht’s Solana donation address received 50% of the supply of ROSS from the developer last week. 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 claimed.

Ulbricht initialized the ROSS liquidity pool on Pump.fun at the wrong price, causing an MEV bot to take and sell it instantly. At first, this only used 5% of the total token supply, but Ulbricht tried to liquidate 35% shortly afterward.

This caused ROSS tokens to drop by 90%, and he received $600,000 for $12 million worth of assets.

The crypto community’s immediate reaction was sympathetic in nature. Before he was arrested, Bitcoin transactions on the Silk Road were the largest catalyst for the sector. Some would even argue that a large number of users back in 2012 became familiar with crypto just because of the Silk Road.

While most community members do not dispute Ulbricht’s imprisonment, the extent of his sentence felt largely exacerbated. For instance, Ulbricht received a double life sentence, while some of the worst drug dealers on Silk Road saw lighter sentencing.

Overall, the ROSS tokens were meant to help him get back into the real world, but the technicalities of DeFi and meme coins have changed a lot. He still retains one-fifth of his donated ROSS tokens, which are worth substantially less.

This episode illustrates that industry veterans like Ulbricht can still lose out on Pump.fun. Most traders on the platform lose money, and Solana’s founders showed a strong contempt for it in an anonymous survey.

The meme coin launchpad may have record-level incomes in 2025, but it’s also under a great deal of scrutiny. Hopefully, Ulbricht can bounce back from this rude awakening.