$LIBRA & $MELANIA Team’s POPE Trade Results in $2.73M ‘Loss’ and Re-Routing of Funds

$LIBRA and $MELANIA are in the news as fresh allegations of insider trading continue to raise uproar within the crypto community regarding these token teams. Blockchain data from Lookonchain showed an insider group that controlled LIBRA and MELANIA executed an unusual trade involving POPE meme coin for substantial funds, followed by an immediate dump of the coins for limited returns.

LIBRA Token: A Political Fiasco

During an official meeting between President Javier Milei and technical advisor Hayden Davis of $LIBRA on January 30, 2025, Milei publicly supported the token through his social media platform. The market went crazy after the presidential endorsement, but the project team’s immediate action of removing $87 million from the liquidity pools triggered an 80% price drop. Milei removed his post before initiating an investigation into corruption, but the investors suffered permanent losses.

MELANIA Token: A Familiar Playbook

A comparable situation occurred when the $MELANIA token attached to former First Lady Melania Trump achieved a $10 billion market value until insiders liquidated substantial amounts which caused its value to plummet beneath $2 billion. The token followed a familiar pattern to LIBRA when its origins used political figures for legitimacy but insiders drained funds which left retail investors with nothing.

$2.73M Lost in POPE Trade Raises Red Flags

A single wallet spent 19,846 SOL, worth $2.76M, to purchase the low-value POPE token with a $150K market capitalization. The wallet instantly offloaded the POPE purchased for 175 SOL, producing a loss of $2.73 million.

The reported significant financial loss during this trade became suspicious when analysts explored the matter because this loss seemed intended to shift funds to other crypto wallets in ways that avoided legal detection. The cryptocurrency transaction records show SOL funds from $LIBRA and $MELANIA trades were consecutively transferred into this POPE purchase, suggesting a coordinated laundering effort.

The On-Chain Trail: A Coordinated Scheme

The deep on-chain analysis found that initial trading wallets for LIBRA and MELANIA shared keys with extensive insider-controlled addresses. Numerous wallets in these projects have been implicated in rug pull cases such as TRUST, KACY, and VIBES.

Insiders conducted numerous Solana-Avalanche transfers using CCTP to cover their financial activities between blockchain networks. Insider profits from $MELANIA were converted into USDC before transferring funds to $LIBRA, which strengthens evidence that the same members ran both operations.

Conclusion

Internal manipulation in cryptocurrency operations has become a serious concern following investigations into $LIBRA and $MELANIA token schemes. The industry experiences rising regulatory pressure and demands stronger safeguards because blockchain data reveals that the schemes extracted millions by fooling retail investors.