- Insiders made almost $100 million by buying MELANIA tokens minutes before Melania’s official endorsement.
- Since March 16, the MELANIA team has sold over 41 million tokens without giving any sort of official explanation, raising community concerns.
The MELANIA token has once again sparked controversy after reports revealed that insiders made $100 million in profits minutes before Melania Trump’s endorsement post.
This move has raised questions about the timing and fairness of the token’s release, with many speculating that key players had prior knowledge of the upcoming announcement.
Insider Profits Raise Questions on Market Manipulation
The details were covered by the Financial Times, and it revealed that insiders made $99.6 million from the token hours before its launch. The report showed about 24 addresses that spent $2.6 million on 16.77 million tokens within just two and a half minutes before Melania Trump shared the news on her Truth Social account.
This big movement caused a ‘trading frenzy,’ allowing the price of MELANIA to significantly increase. Most of the addresses sold off their tokens quickly, making huge profits, with almost 81% of the sales happening within 12 hours of launch. A particular address spent $681,000 to buy the token 64 seconds before the announcement and earned $39 million within 12 hours after the announcement, plus an additional $4.4 million after three days.
While this raised concerns about insider trading, the SEC stated that memecoins are considered collectibles rather than securities, implying that traditional rules that govern securities don’t apply to insider trading.
Since March 16, the MELANIA team has moved over about 41.675 million tokens from community and liquidity wallets, selling them on exchanges and adding their own liquidity.
Most of the funds were either changed to USDC or taken out. Even though many in the crypto space have questioned the ongoing sales, the token team has not released any public statements.
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