How Early Whales Made Nearly $100M in Minutes Flipping Melania Trump's MELANIA Token

A group of early traders made nearly $100 million in profits within minutes of Melania Trump’s MELANIA token debut, an investigation by the Financial Times has found — prompting questions over potential insider trading in the fast-growing sector.

According to on-chain data from Token Terminal, about two dozen wallets bought $2.6 million of MELANIA tokens just minutes before Melania Trump announced the token’s launch via Truth Social on January 19.

The timing of these trades, and the fact that they were executed in close proximity to one another, suggests that the buyers may have been coordinating their activity. This is significant because it led to a massive price spike, which enabled these wallets to dump tokens shortly after, with 81% of their sales taking place within 12 hours.

As a result, these wallets were able to capitalize on the price increase and made a collective profit of nearly $100 million from their trades, which is an incredible return on their initial investment.

However, the timing of these trades, and the fact that they were executed in close proximity to one another, has also led to speculation that they may have been the result of insider activity.

This is especially pertinent when comparing it to the earlier launch of Donald Trump’s TRUMP token, which did not see any significant trading activity in the days and weeks leading up to the announcement.

In contrast to TRUMP, which had no noteworthy pre-launch activity, MELANIA's shows significant trading in the minutes before the announcement, suggesting the traders had knowledge of the impending launch, enabling them to capitalize with swift trades.

It is also worth noting that these memecoins do not have any utility beyond their branding and are sold on the premise of their speculative value — with some promising perks like a dinner with the former president.

According to current SEC guidelines, such tokens are not classified as securities, and thus trades like these are not covered by traditional insider-trading laws.

Link to Texas crypto entrepreneur?

The report by the Financial Times also linked some of the wallets to Hayden Davis, a Texas-based crypto entrepreneur, though no formal accusations have been made.

The findings come as Congress is increasing scrutiny of crypto markets with a series of hearings.

The report by the Financial Times also raises broader concerns about transparency and fairness in the increasingly popular meme token market, especially when it is linked to high-profile public figures.