Handful of investors make $100M off Melania memecoin dump

Financial Times reports a small group of traders earned almost $100 million buying Melania Trump’s cryptocurrency token in the minutes before it went public.

Donald Trump’s wife unveiled the $MELANIA coin in a social media post late January 19, hours before Trump’s inauguration, and two dozen digital wallets snapped up $2.6 million worth of the tokens from the crypto marketplace in the two and a half minutes before the post went live on Truth Social.

When Melania Trump’s post sent the price of the tokens soaring, they quickly sold 81 percent of their purchases within a span of 12 hours to eager buyers.

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One wallet, reports FT, bought $681,000 worth of memecoin in a single transaction 64 seconds before the existence of the project was made public. Within 24 hours, that same account sold $39 million at the resulting inflated price. It made an additional $4.4 million selling the remainder over the course of three days.

In total, entities behind the launch earned at least $350 million from token sales transaction fees. The biggest investors are unknown because entities or individuals who control the wallets that hold and trade coins are generally anonymous.

In addition to the anonymous buyers who reaped a windfall, a Financial Times analysis suggests “the entities that launched the coin — which are separate to the wallets that traded in it prior to the official announcement — have so far withdrawn profits of $64.7 [million] from fees and primary sales.”

Texas crypto entrepreneur Hayden Davis, who was involved in the launch of $MELANIA, also participated in the launch of the controversial $LIBRA memecoin, endorsed by Argentina President Javier Milei. $LIBRA degenerated into a scandal after a surge and subsequent price crash cost buyers millions in lost investment. Argentina’s Congress is now backing an investigation into Milei over the $4.4 billion implosion.

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Read the full Financial Times report here.