A tiny mistake that cost Ross Ulbricht $12 million

Plus: The ECB throws shade at Bitcoin

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😐 Ross Ulbricht loses $12M to a bot.

🍋 News drops: Tether is bringing USDT to Bitcoin, some YouTubers get sued over an NFT scam + more

🍍 Market flavor today

The market stayed greedy all week, Bitcoin held above $103K today, and BTC ETFs saw a solid $588.1M in inflows yesterday. Everything looks chill…

… unless you check what the people in charge are cooking.

Apparently, Donald Trump wasn’t bluffing – he’s moving forward with his plan to slap a 25% tax on imports from Canada and Mexico starting tomorrow.

That’s a huge deal, given that those two countries make up about 27% of all US trade.

According to Bitwise’s head of research, André Dragosch, this tax could translate to a 6.75% increase in import prices next month, enough to push inflation higher and make the Fed less likely to cut rates.

If inflation starts creeping up, some investors might use crypto as a hedge;
At the same time, if credit conditions tighten, investors could pull money out of riskier assets like crypto.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the Czech Republic’s central bank is thinking about adding Bitcoin to its reserves – and the European Central Bank (ECB) is not having it.

ECB’s President Christine Lagarde says she’s “confident that Bitcoin will not enter the reserves of any of the central banks of the General Council.”

Her reasoning: reserves must remain liquid, secure, and free from any suspicion of money laundering or crime.

Uhmm, sure, sis 🫡 Except:

Bitcoin is actually one of the most liquid assets out there, traded 24/7 with massive daily volumes;
With proper custody solutions, Bitcoin can be held securely – and many major financial institutions are already doing so;
Sure, Bitcoin still faces concerns about illegal activity. But ironically, major banks have been fined billions for money laundering – so it’s not like traditional systems are squeaky clean.

As crypto matures and regulatory frameworks evolve, the idea that “no central bank would ever hold Bitcoin” might age about as well as my uncle Bob’s take that getting a tattoo means I’ll never get a job.

Moral of the story: if crypto’s looking chill… you’re prolly just don’t have all the info.

🥝 Memecoin harvest

We put the “fun” in “fundamentals”… lol jk, no fundamentals right here, partner – but these memecoins still mooned 🤠

	Name		24H Change
	Lux Token LUX		▲ 16.8K%
	THUG LIFE GANG		▲ 9.3K%
	The Next Bitcoin BUTTCOIN		▲ 4.2K%
	Aesoperator AESOP		▲ 818%

Data as of 10:10 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

Imagine you go fishing, catch a lil’ fishie, throw it back into the water (’cause you have such a kind heart, of course)…

… and it IMMEDIATELY gets eaten by a bigger fish.

That’s pretty much how people who donated ROSS memecoins to Ross Ulbricht (the guy who created Silk Road and got pardoned by Trump recently) probably feel rn.

His crypto wallets just fumbled $12 million – because of an oopsie.

… How tf?

Ross (or someone controlling his wallets) tried to set up a liquidity pool for the ROSS token on Raydium, a DEX on Solana. The goal? For people to trade the token more easily by adding some of his own ROSS coins into the market.
The step where things went wrong. When you create a liquidity pool, you need to set the starting price of the token correctly – otherwise, someone can instantly take advantage of the mistake. Ross set the wrong price, basically making it super easy for bots to buy up his tokens for way cheaper than they were supposed to be.
An MEV bot (aka a super-fast, profit-hunting trading bot) grabbed $1.5M worth of ROSS and flipped them for a profit.
Ross (or his team) didn’t realize the mistake… so he tried to set up the pool AGAIN. This time, another $10.5M was lost.
The price of ROSS tanked by 90% in the process.

On the bright side, Ross still has 10% of the supply left and has now properly set up liquidity.

Yeah, but… Actually, no – no further comments here. We’re walking into the weekend with good vibes only.

🍋 News drops

⚡️ Tether is bringing USDT to Bitcoin via the Lightning Network, making transactions faster and cheaper. Now, merchants can accept USDT just like BTC – same setup, less hassle.

🚔 A Manchester gang got sentenced after kidnapping a guy and making him hand over $124K in crypto. They repeatedly terrorized him for almost a year

🚕 Teleport, the Solana-based rideshare app that wanted to take on Uber and Lyft, is shutting down. They’re blaming the market for not being ready for decentralized rides.

🔥 Pump.fun’s in hot water. A lawsuit claims the platform made $500M off unregistered securities and hyped highly volatile tokens.

⚖️ The Nelk Boys have been sued over claims they overpromised and underdelivered on their $23M MetaCard NFT project. Buyers expected VIP perks – meetups with Snoop Dogg, exclusive events, merch discounts, and even a $250K giveaway. Instead? A whole lotta nothing.