The MELANIA Memecoin Controversy
The team involved in developing the MELANIA memecoin, associated with former US First Lady Melania Trump, has reportedly transferred and started selling around US$30 million in tokens from community funds. The information was released by on-chain analysis company Bubblemaps, in a post published on X on April 7.
According to the analysis, around 50 million MELANIA tokens were moved from a wallet linked to the community fund to another centralized wallet, before being distributed among several addresses. Then, part of the tokens — equivalent to US$3 million — were sent to exchanges, two new wallets with US$6 million each were opened, and approximately US$500 worth of MELANIA were sold on the market.
“These movements are being made without any explanation from the team. No one has commented on the movement or the sales,” Bubblemaps said.
Huge Sell-offs on $MELANIA
$30M was moved from community funds — and is now being quietly sold, with no explanation from the team
The company also highlighted that around 92% of the entire MELANIA supply remains under the control of wallets associated with the project team. According to the analysis, the risk of further declines still exists, considering the large concentration of tokens in a few hands.
MELANIA launched on January 19, coinciding with the launch of another meme-themed token by Donald Trump a day earlier. Since then, the memecoin has lost more than 96% of its value. At its peak, the token was worth more than $13 and is currently trading at around $0.51, down more than 7.5% in the last 24 hours alone, according to data from CoinGecko.
Bubblemaps had already pointed out in March that Hayden Davis, one of the figures involved in the creation of MELANIA, had been selling tokens in a disguised manner through unilateral liquidity strategies. The practice was also applied by Davis in the sale of the LIBRA memecoin, associated with Argentine President Javier Milei, which generated controversy after the collapse in the asset’s price.