Melania Token Team Triggers $1.5M Sell-Off—Slow Rug Pull or Strategic Exit?
Another day, another crypto project making headlines for the wrong reasons. The team behind Melania Token just liquidated $1.5 million worth of holdings—sparking panic selling and fresh ’rug pull’ whispers across Crypto Twitter.
Was this a coordinated dump? The transactions hit exchanges in a tight 12-hour window, but the project’s gradual decline over weeks had already set alarm bells ringing. Classic slow rug playbook—or just another ’VCs cashing out before retail notices’ special?
Funny how these ’community-driven’ projects always seem to have dev wallets heavier than a Bitcoin maximalist’s conviction. The only thing decentralized here was the blame game in their Telegram chat.
MELANIA no longer mirroring TRUMP performance
Meanwhile, the continued sell-off of MELANIA is now affecting its performance. Although the memecoin is up 21% in the past week, it may not be able to defy the continued selling pressure for long.
The reason behind its rise earlier was the TRUMP memecoin team announcing an exclusive dinner for the top 220 holders of TRUMP. While the news caused TRUMP token to rise and pushed MELANIA’s value due to its affiliation, there is now a divergence in their price performances.
TRUMP is up 2% today and is currently trading above $15, while MELANIA has fallen more than 6% to $0.4511. That divergence will likely continue given that even in the past week, MELANIA only gained 21% compared to over 80% gained for TRUMP.
TRUMP memecoin’s recent gains have allowed it to wipe off medium-term losses, with the token showing positive 48% performance in 30 days. However, MELANIA is still down 26.54% in that period as it has not been able to sustain its gains.
The divergence is not surprising given how the sell-offs have affected interest in MELANIA and piled more selling pressure on the token. Its 24-hour trading volume according to CoinMarketCap, is less than $30 million despite a circulating supply of 550 million tokens.
By comparison, TRUMP’s circulating supply of 200 million tokens has had over $1.47 billion in trading volume. This is a reflection of the demand in the asset and its sustained buying pressure.
However, one thing that both memecoins have in common is that most of those who bought them are in the red. TRUMP is down 79% from its peak price, while MELANIA has lost 96.5% of its value since reaching its all-time high.
Whale shorts TRUMP despite recovery trend
Despite TRUMP memecoin enjoying a resurgence in performance, one whale is betting on its subsequent decline. According to Lookonchain, the whale funded a new wallet with $1.33 million in USDC to short the token on Hyperliquid.
The whale has an entry price of $14.787, with their liquidation price at $21.528, showing that they do not expect the current momentum to last. This is coming at a time when the token has the top netflow in the last 24 hours.
Nevertheless, some people believe the bearish sentiment around TRUMP is reasonable given that there will be unlocks of the token scheduled over the next two months. Token unlocks will increase the circulating supply, which will increase selling pressure.
The demand for the token, which has been close to its January levels over the past week, could also plunge after May 12, which is the last day for determining which holders qualify for the exclusive dinner.
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