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Melania Trump’s Endorsement of MELANIA Token Sparks Debate as Project Faces Allegations of Mismanagement and Market Collapse
Melania Trump, the former First Lady of the United States, has stirred controversy once again by endorsing the MELANIA meme token, a cryptocurrency built on the Solana (SOL) blockchain. Despite the token experiencing critical blows, including allegations of a $10 million sell-off by team wallets and a staggering 98% price collapse, Trump continues to promote the project, raising questions about transparency and accountability in the cryptocurrency space.
Melania Trump’s New Promotional Campaign
On October 1, 2025, Melania Trump posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to promote an AI-generated video that described the MELANIA token as “the road to the future.” Tagging the token’s official account in the post, she reignited a promotional campaign after a prolonged silence of 10 months. Her post on X read:
“Into The Future @TrueMELANIAmeme https://t.co/eles222J1r.”
Critics quickly pointed out that this new promotional effort made no mention of the controversies engulfing the token, specifically the allegations of a strategic sell-off by insiders that is said to have devastated the token’s value.
Blockchain Analysts Expose Financial Irregularities
BubbleMaps, a prominent blockchain data visualization platform, strongly criticized Trump’s campaign for ignoring the $10 million token sell-off by team wallets. The platform called out the AI-generated promotional video as a distraction from the allegations that have been haunting the project for months.
According to BubbleMaps, on April 7, the MELANIA development team quietly moved $30 million worth of community funds without providing any explanation to the public. This raised alarms among investors, particularly because, later that month, the team sold $1.5 million worth of tokens over a span of three days. These sales came suspiciously on the heels of a 21% surge in the token’s price just a week prior, suggesting potential market manipulation.
Pattern of Token Sell-Offs and Questionable Strategies
Analysts from Lookonchain, an on-chain intelligence platform, have characterized MELANIA's sell-off patterns as resembling dollar-cost averaging (DCA). While DCA is traditionally used as a systematic investment strategy, its application in this context implies that insiders may have purposefully liquidated tokens at regular intervals to minimize the market impact while still extracting substantial value—actions that some observers view as unethical.
MELANIA Token’s Dramatic Price Collapse
Since its inception in January, the MELANIA token has witnessed a breathtaking decline in value. Initially priced at $13.73 at its all-time high, the token now trades at just $0.18, marking a precipitous 98% drop. CoinMarketCap data reflects a loss of over 90% from its initial listing price alone, underscoring the volatility of the project and the broader risks associated with cryptocurrency investments.
A Troubling Track Record
The MELANIA token’s troubled history is further compounded by the reputation of its co-founder, Hayden Davis. Known for his role in the collapse of the LIBRA token, Davis has gained a reputation for launching questionable projects during the 2025 market frenzy. Earlier this year, he released another meme token themed around “The Wolf of Wall Street.” That token famously lost 99% of its value within just two days—an event that came on the heels of the LIBRA debacle.
The LIBRA token’s crash was catastrophic, with eight insider wallets reportedly withdrawing $107 million of liquidity in a coordinated crash. This caused LIBRA’s market cap to plummet from $4 billion to virtually nothing almost overnight, erasing investor confidence and devastating its community.
High-Profile Endorsements and Industry Accountability
Melania Trump’s continued promotion of the MELANIA token highlights the risks of high-profile endorsements in an industry notorious for its lack of regulatory oversight. While the former First Lady’s association may attract attention, critics argue that it also underscores the need for tighter regulation to hold crypto projects accountable for their actions.
The controversies surrounding MELANIA and Hayden Davis’s involvement in previous failures reveal persistent issues in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, including a lack of transparency, insider mismanagement, and the susceptibility of retail investors to exploitation. These patterns have reignited calls for investor protection reforms to bring ethical standards to a space still plagued by speculative bubbles and market manipulation.
As the crypto industry continues to evolve, the challenges posed by unregulated token projects highlight the importance of thorough due diligence by investors and the ongoing need for systemic safeguards to mitigate the risks associated with unchecked financial experimentation.
Melania Trump’s unabated promotion of the MELANIA token, despite its controversies, illustrates just how fragile trust can be in the fast-moving world of cryptocurrency. Without significant changes to ensure transparency and accountability, projects like these will continue to bring volatility, not just to investors’ portfolios, but to the credibility of the entire crypto market.
