Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps alleges that the team behind Melania Trump’s memecoin, MELANIA, moved and began offloading $30 million in tokens from community funds without any public explanation.
Background
- The MELANIA token, a memecoin launched on January 19—one day after Donald Trump debuted his own token and one day before his White House re-entry—was touted as a playful extension of the Trump-branded memecoin trend.
- However, since its peak shortly after launch, the token has plunged over 96% from its all-time high of $13, now trading at just $0.51, per CoinGecko data.
- On April 7, blockchain investigation platform Bubblemaps revealed that 50 million MELANIA tokens, valued at roughly $30 million, were moved out of community-designated wallets.
- The tokens were reportedly funneled to a single address and subsequently distributed across multiple wallets, where portions of the stash were sent to exchanges or sold off in varying amounts.
Why Should You Pay Attention?
- This incident raises serious concerns about transparency and accountability in memecoin projects, especially those with high-profile affiliations.
- With 92% of the total token supply reportedly controlled by team wallets, the alleged selling activity could further erode community trust and dump prices even lower.
- Investors in memecoins often operate with little recourse when team members act without clear disclosures, and this situation highlights the broader risks involved in investing in celebrity-linked tokens with centralized token control.
Who Said What?
- In its April 7 post on X, Bubblemaps stated:
“50M MELANIA tokens worth around $30M was moved from community funds — and is now being quietly sold, with no explanation from the team.”
- The post further highlighted a lack of communication from the team:
“No one from the MELANIA team has addressed this. Not the movements. Not the selling. If it’s the team behind it, why stay silent? If it’s Hayden Davis, why hasn’t anyone stepped in?”
- The firm previously disclosed that Hayden Davis, one of the creators of MELANIA, had already been covertly selling tokens via single-sided liquidity pools.
Zooming Out
- The MELANIA token's rapid fall from grace echoes a pattern seen across memecoins that combine hype with celebrity branding, but lack transparency and proper governance.
- The situation has reignited calls for clearer disclosures and tokenomics structures in crypto projects, especially those attracting retail investors on the strength of household names.
- While Melania Trump herself has not publicly addressed the token activity, the fallout from this alleged “quiet sell-off” could undermine trust in politically affiliated crypto initiatives going forward.
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