First Lady’s $MELANIA Coin Under Fire: Lawsuit Alleges Massive Pump-and-Dump Scheme

US First Lady Melania Trump and Argentina’s President Javier Milei both feature in a new lawsuit over the LIBRA and MELANIA memecoins — though only Milei faces direct legal charges.

Plaintiffs have recently filed an amended complaint on Tuesday, accusing Meteora and co-founder Ben Chow of engineering a scheme around the LIBRA and MELANIA memecoins, alleging a coordinated “liquidity trap” masked by real-world branding.

The filing argues the defendants leveraged public personas and themes to confer legitimacy, citing the First Lady–branded MELANIA token and Argentina’s “revival” narrative for LIBRA. 

According to the plaintiffs, those figures functioned as marketing assets leveraged for credibility, rather than culpable participants, while Meteora and Hayden Davis’s Kelsier Ventures ran the launches and promotion.

The complaint describes the common pump and dump playbook, which is usually triggered through rapid hype, a sharp run-up, and steep post-listing collapses. 

MELANIA, marketed as Melania Trump’s “official” coin, spiked before tumbling amid allegations of insider trading and developer control. Coffeezilla had already covered the disastrous launch of both tokens after pressing Hayden Davis (from Kelsier Ventures, also named in the lawsuit) in an interview.

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The Infamous LIBRA Token

LIBRA was framed as grassroots funding for Argentine small businesses, then plunged within hours of going live.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei briefly amplified LIBRA on his personal X account before deleting the post after the crash. He now faces fraud charges linked to that promotion, even as the country’s anti-corruption office concluded he did not violate public ethics rules.

Plaintiffs place Chow “at the center of the enterprise,” alleging he assembled participants including Meteora, Jupiter co-founder Ng Ming Yeow, and Kelsier’s Hayden, Gideon, and Charles Davis. 

Named defendants are Benjamin Chow, Meteora, Kelsier Ventures, Hayden Davis, Gideon Davis, and Charles Davis. The suit claims at least 15 tokens followed the same pattern, with the case focusing on five: LIBRA, MELANIA, ENRON, TRUST, and M3M3.

Chow stated on X in February that neither he nor Meteora received tokens or held insider information about LIBRA. He resigned from Meteora that month. 

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