From some on-chain analyses, the hypothesis has emerged that the teams behind the tokens LIBRA and MELANIA are engaging in money laundering.
The hypothesis was proposed yesterday by Lookonchain with an explicit post on X.
Lookonchain wrote that it seems the insider team of LIBRA and MELANIA is recycling funds, because they spent 19,846 SOL (about 2.76 million dollars) to purchase a memecoin with a market capitalization of less than 150,000 dollars, POPE, and then resold it for only 175 SOL (about 24,000$) thus losing 2.73 million dollars.
They also discovered that in this way they effectively sent 2.73 million dollars (19,671 SOL) “legally” to other wallets.
Money laundering through LIBRA and MELANIA tokens
In response to the post of accusations by Lookonchain, another user of X explained that the “clean” wallet purchased POPE tokens spending only $347.
Given that it is a token with extremely low liquidity, it was not difficult for the “dirty” wallet to buy them back for 2.76 million dollars, causing the price to rise.
In essence, by doing so, dirty money would have been moved into a decentralized Liquidity Pool and then “extracted” clean into another wallet.
The technique used involves a clean wallet purchasing a significant percentage of circulating tokens of low-capitalization memecoin on a Liquidity Pool, paying a very modest amount.
At that point, there are so few tokens left for sale in the Liquidity Pool that it becomes very easy to increase their price with purchases from the dirty wallet.
The dirty wallet at that point can spend enormous amounts of money to buy back from the clean wallet the tokens previously purchased, but at an enormously higher price. Once this second transaction is completed, the clean wallet withdraws everything in an apparently legal manner.
In reality, it is still a case of self-laundering, which is a particular form of laundering.
The problem of LIBRA
The upstream offense that could configure this operation as self-laundering is linked to the token LIBRA, and not to MELANIA.
MELANIA is the official token of Donald Trump’s wife, launched in January.
Although after being launched at a price above $8 it plummeted in the following days first below $4, and then even below $1 two days ago, it does not seem that anyone has been accused of fraud for this launch.
It should also be noted that behind this token is the family of the new USA president, and it is possible that many are afraid to make similar accusations. It should not be forgotten that it was indeed the same Donald Trump who advertised the launch of this token on January 19th.
Instead, the LIBRA token has nothing to do with the Trump family.
Its launch was instead advertised by the Argentine president Javier Milei, only to backtrack when he realized it seemed to be a scam.
The LIBRA token was launched a few days ago, on February 15th, at a price above $1.
Immediately after the launch, its price began to plummet, dropping below $0.2 on the very day of the launch.
MELANIA, on the other hand, on the day of the launch had risen up to $13, only to fall below $4 the next day.
LIBRA and MELANIA: the tokens behind the money laundering scam?
The Department of Justice of the USA has opened an investigation into the launch of LIBRA, while it has not lifted a finger against MELANIA.
It should not be forgotten that the Department of Justice of the USA is in all respects an integral part of the government, currently chaired by Melania Trump’s husband.
On the fact that behind the launch of LIBRA there may be a scam, many agree. Moreover, the current price of about $0.1 confirms the fact that the initial price was completely distorted, given that it has lost 90% in ten days.
MELANIA has nevertheless lost 88% in just over a month, so the two trajectories do not seem all that different.
The fact remains that the team that launched LIBRA is the same that launched MELANIA, and as far as the launch of LIBRA is concerned, the fraud hypothesis is shared by many.
The token TRUMP
To tell the truth, even the memecoin TRUMP, launched by Donald Trump himself on January 18, has recorded losses, but much less.
In fact, it debuted on the crypto markets at about $8, then quickly rose even above $70.
Subsequently, the price started to decline, but it remained always above $12, which is a higher level than the initial one. Currently, it is around $13.
This means that, more than a month later, it is still about +50% from the initial price, even though it is -82% from the highs of January 19, and -55% in the last thirty days.
It does not appear that any institution has accused the memecoin TRUMP of being a scam.
As for the MELANIA and LIBRA tokens, the situation seems to be a bit different, and in the specific case of LIBRA, there is also an explicit accusation of fraud by the American institutions.