Fresh fears of a potential soft rug pull have gripped the MELANIA token community after blockchain tracking platform Arkham Intelligence reported that the team behind the meme coin had moved $1 million worth of MELANIA tokens from Meteora liquidity pools to a new wallet.
MELANIA TEAM MOVING $1M MELANIA
The MELANIA Team just removed $1M of MELANIA from Meteora liquidity pools and sent it on to a new wallet.
Previously, when they have done this, they have sold MELANIA via Jupiter DCA, then deposited the SOL to MEXC. pic.twitter.com/J0gNEukOga
— Arkham (@arkham) April 29, 2025
While this might seem like a routine transaction, historical behavior suggests otherwise.
On multiple occasions, similar liquidity withdrawals by the team have occurred in recent weeks.
This latest activity follows a string of suspicious transactions uncovered by Lookonchain over the past few days, indicating that the MELANIA team sold over $1.5 million in tokens within 72 hours.
On April 28 alone, $938,000 in MELANIA was sold, two days after a $632,000 sell-off.
$MELANIA meme coin team dumps $1.5M in tokens amid a 21% price pump, sparking rug-pull fears as insiders cash out. #Memecoin #Melaniahttps://t.co/7jZEhyc7mr
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) April 28, 2025
According to blockchain data from Solscan, the sales were spread across multiple wallets, suggesting deliberate fragmentation to obscure the true extent of the selling pressure.
Despite a 21% rebound in MELANIA’s price over the past week, the token remains 96% below its all-time high of $13.70, reached on January 20.
Calculated Liquidation and Historical Patterns: A Deeper Look
The MELANIA team’s selling tactics have taken on an increasingly calculated form.
According to Lookonchain, the team has been employing a DCA strategy, which, in typical investment scenarios, helps minimize emotional decision-making by buying or selling assets in small, timed increments.
The #Melania team didn’t just add or remove liquidity to sell $MELANIA, they also employed a DCA strategy for direct sales!
2 days ago, they sold 1.18M $MELANIA for 4,230 $SOL($632K) using the DCA strategy.
Today, they are selling another 2.01M $MELANIA($938K) through the DCA… pic.twitter.com/FQBUghEogv
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) April 28, 2025
In this case, however, the strategy is weaponized to offload massive token holdings without causing catastrophic price slippage that would alert the community too early.
This approach ensures sustained downward pressure while masking the full extent of the impact.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. Back on April 20, blockchain researcher EmberCN reported that the MELANIA team had sold over $14.75 million in tokens during the previous month through centralized exchanges and liquidity pool manipulation on decentralized platforms.
$MELANIA 项目方在过去 1 个月时间里，通过流动性地址及社区地址，以添加单边流动性的方式一共出售了价值 $1406 万的 $MELANIA (2050 万枚)。均价约 $0.686。
1⃣社区分配部分：出售了 1050 万枚 $MELANIA 换成 44013 枚 SOL。
1050 万枚 $MELANIA 转到 4 个地址以添加单边流动性的方式出售，然后将… pic.twitter.com/uyFHBfdlh3
— 余烬 (@EmberCN) April 16, 2025
On April 19 alone, they sold 2.95 million tokens for roughly $1.2 million worth of SOL. Despite community speculation and repeated red flags, these actions continue without consequences.
MELANIA, which once had a market cap of $13 billion, has now lost 99% of its value, mirroring LIBRA’s spectacular downfall.
Meme Coin Momentum Fizzles as Political Tokens Lose Luster
Though meme coins captured 27% of crypto investor interest in Q1 2025, second only to AI tokens, recent performance trends suggest waning enthusiasm.
TRUMP, another politically themed meme token, plummeted from a high of $75.35 to just $8.14 in three months, despite renewed interest tied to a $300 million token unlock and a promotional dinner event featuring President Trump himself.
The fading excitement is evident across the ecosystem, with meme coins now struggling; investors are pivoting toward narratives with more substance, such as AI and real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.
The concerns extend beyond the crypto-native world. Legal pressure is mounting against such questionable behavior.
In an unrelated but parallel case, Nike is facing a class-action lawsuit from RTFKT investors who allege that the sportswear giant executed a soft rug pull when it abruptly shut down the NFT platform in December 2024.
Nike faces a $5m lawsuit from investors claiming its abrupt NFT venture shutdown caused heavy financial losses.#Nike #NFTshttps://t.co/QueluJPH7I
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) April 28, 2025
Plaintiffs claim that Nike failed to disclose the regulatory risks and abandoned the project after hyping it, a pattern similar to that seen in MELANIA and LIBRA.
With major brands like Nike and projects like MELANIA under fire, the meme coin supercycle is in decline, possibly giving way to a new, more regulated, and cautious phase in the sector.
For MELANIA holders, the picture remains bleak. The token’s price sits near rock bottom, and with each new liquidity removal or team wallet transaction, faith in the project dwindles further. New investors should refrain from investing and seek more suitable investment products.
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