A small group of cryptocurrency ‘sniper’ traders earned $99.6 million by buying Melania Trump‘s memecoin minutes before it was made public, a new report revealed on Tuesday.
The first lady unveiled her ‘$MELANIA’ cryptocurrency the night before Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second term.
But in the two and a half minutes before her post went live on Truth Social, two dozen digital wallets bought $2.6 million of the coin and profited when the price of the tokens rose after she announced their availability, the Financial Times found.
Meme coins are generally considered to be incredibly risky investments, since they are prone to insider-trading and extreme volatility.
A small group of traders made a huge profit off of Melania Trump’s memecoin
The coins can be created and launched by anyone, and there are thousands in existence.
The value of these coins can rise sharply – going from zero to multiple figures – if interest in them surges.
The accounts that buy big and early – making a bet the value could skyrocket – are referred to as ‘snipers.’
One account dropped $681,000 on the $MELANIA memecoin 64 seconds before the first lady announced the cryptocurrency.
Within 24 hours, the account had made $39 million from selling the memecoin, the FT analysis found.
Melania launched her memecoin on January 19th, two days after Donald Trump released his $TRUMP coin.
There were no pre-announcement purchases of the president’s memecoin with the first sale coming seconds after he announced the cryptocurrency on Truth Social.
But the entities behind the $TRUMP launch earned at least $350 million from sales of the tokens and market-making fees.
$MELANIA is marketed by MKT World LLC, the first lady’s own company she has used for her various business ventures.
It’s unclear if that company issued the coin or how the profits are split between all the entities involved.
Melania Trump’s office didn’t comment when asked by DailyMail.
Melania’s official announcement of her cryptocoin
Within days of each other Donald Trump and his wife Melania have launched their own cryptocurrency meme coins
Cryptocurrency is not subject to the financial regulations that U.S. securities are, meaning the promoters are not bound by federal disclosure and insider dealing rules designed to protect retail investors.
The lack of regulation means investors are at risk from manipulative trading practices.
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