Fresh out of prison and already making waves, Ross Ulbricht just fumbled $12M trying to play the meme coin game on Solana.

The Silk Road founder, newly pardoned by Trump on January 22nd, managed to lose it all in a spectacular tech mishap that's got Crypto Twitter absolutely rolling.

While passe to kick a man while he’s down, a lot of folks wish they had $12 million to blow in the meme coin trenches.

From Prison to Pump.fun

After getting that sweet presidential pardon (that Trump shared via his Truth Social announcement), Ulbricht jumped straight into the deep end of crypto's most degen corner.

The free man has gone full meme coin enthusiast.

His supporters created a token called ROSS, probably thinking they were doing him a solid. 

They even gave him 50% of the supply. What could go wrong?

Everything. Everything could go wrong.

The man has been in Federal prison since before DeFi was a concept. He has zero experience with the tech at this point. 

The $12M Oopsie

So after getting wind of the new token, Ulbricht (or someone with his keys) tried playing liquidity provider on Raydium. 

It didn't go well.

Instead of using a CLMM (Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker) like a pro, everyone’s favorite industry hero accidentally went with CPMM (Constant-Product Market Maker).

For the non-DeFi nerds out there – that's like putting up the Bat Signal to tell the world you have money and are willing to give it to the robots.

The MEV Sharks Were Waiting

An MEV bot (think of it as a very fast, very hungry robo-shark) spotted the mistake and went straight for the kill. 

It snagged $1.5M worth of ROSS tokens at bargain-basement prices and flipped them instantly.

But… it sort of gets worse.

Ulbricht tried fixing his mistake... by making the exact same mistake again. 

This second time around, it cost him another $10.5M.

The token crashed 90%, leaving him with about $200K worth of ROSS. 

Ouch… poor Ross (and ROSS bag holders.) 

Pump.fun's Victory Lap

Meanwhile, Pump.fun (where all this went down) is absolutely crushing it. 

They're now making more money than both Solana and Ethereum, raking in around $116.72M in monthly revenue.

A meme coin platform is now outearning two of the biggest blockchain networks in the game, having launched over 4.2M meme coins and pulled in $1.15M in trading fees in just 24 hours. 

That's either incredibly impressive or terrifying, depending on your view of the future of our industry.

Keep Your Wits About You

DeFi isn’t exactly forgiving to newcomers – even if you're Ross Ulbricht. 

One wrong click, and the MEV bots are having a feast with your funds.

Welcome back to freedom, Ross. 

Maybe stick to spot trading for a bit before diving into the deep end of the industry. 

It’s a different world out here.