A few investors made huge profits by buying coins in advance just before Melania Trump, the wife of U.S. President Donald Trump, unveiled a ‘meme coin’ named after her.
According to the British daily Financial Times (FT) on the 6th (local time), on the night of January 19, the day before President Trump's inauguration, Melania Trump announced the release of Melania Coin ($MELANIA) through the social media platform Truth Social.
FT pointed out that some investors began purchasing large quantities of coins just over two minutes before Melania Trump posted the related post on Truth Social. The media's own analysis revealed that "about 20 digital wallets purchased $2.6 billion (about 3.6 billion won) worth of (Melania) coins in the cryptocurrency market where the coins were deposited."
As soon as Melania Trump announced the release of the meme coin, the coin's price surged, and the owners immediately moved to realize profits. FT estimated that "these wallets quickly disposed of most of the (Melania) coins they held, with 81% of these transactions occurring within 12 hours," and that they made a whopping $99.6 million (about 138 billion won) in windfall profits through this method.
For example, one digital wallet that purchased $681,000 (about 940 million won) worth of Melania coins 64 seconds before the official announcement later resold the coins over 24 hours to earn $39 million (about 5.4 billion won). Another account that first bought Melania coins invested $40,000 (about 55 million won) 141 seconds before the official announcement and made a profit of $2.5 million (about 3.47 billion won) in two hours.
However, FT added that since meme coins are not considered securities under U.S. law, there is no need to comply with disclosure and insider trading regulations for the protection of individual investors.
Melania Coin is sold through 'MKT World', a Delaware-based company that Melania Trump has used for various businesses since 2021. However, it is not clearly known whether MKT World is the issuer of Melania Coin.
FT reported that Melania Trump's side did not immediately respond to inquiries related to these reports.
Jinyoung Ki, Hankyung.com reporter young71@hankyung.com
