Melania Trump and Javier Milei were used as promotional figures to promote meme coins

Key points:

• Melania and Milei appear as public figures who promoted MEME tokens.
• The lawsuit mentions the MELANIA and LIBRA tokens, which plummeted after experiencing multiple periods of growth.
• The main figure in the case is Meteora founder Benjamin Chow.

A class action lawsuit against the Meteora crypto project alleges that the company used the names of well-known political figures — Melania Trump and Javier Milei — as a PR stunt for meme tokens, which ultimately turned out to be part of a financial scam.

According to the plaintiffs, Meteora CEO Benjamin Chow developed and controlled a system that launched tokens allegedly associated with famous figures. These projects rose sharply in price, and then the team sold the assets and withdrew liquidity, leaving investors with losses.

How the Meteora scheme worked

According to documents in the Hurlock v. Kelsier Ventures case, the charges are directed against Meteora, Chow, and a number of related companies. The investigation alleges that the team launched at least 15 meme tokens using a scheme of artificially inflating prices and then dumping assets.

“Defendants borrowed credibility from real-world figures or themes—such as the ‘official Melania Trump’ coin (MELANIA), [and] the ‘Argentine revival’ coin (LIBRA) tied to President Javier Milei,” the lawsuit states.

The MELANIA token on the Solana blockchain appeared shortly after the release of Donald Trump’s official token. Its price rose in the early days, but then collapsed by almost 99% — the developers withdrew liquidity without informing investors.

A similar situation occurred with the LIBRA token, which was advertised as a project to support small businesses and was associated with Javier Milei. Its price fell by 90% in just a few hours, after which Milei deleted posts mentioning the cryptocurrency.

The trail leads to one team

Analysts at Bubblemaps found that the wallets involved in the launch of MELANIA and LIBRA belong to the same group of individuals. This became the basis for a class action lawsuit and revealed details of the internal structure of the scam.

According to the investigation, Benjamin Chow personally managed the scheme. He was assisted by Jupiter co-founder Ming Yeow and the Davis family from Kelsier Ventures. All of them, according to the plaintiffs, acted on Chow’s instructions.

Hayden Davis, head of Kelsier Ventures, had previously claimed he was not involved, but lawyers presented screenshots of his Telegram correspondence in which he admits to working under Chow.

In August, a judge ruled to unfreeze $57,6 million in USDC linked to the Libra token, finding that the plaintiffs’ evidence was not yet convincing enough.

Argentina’s Anti-Corruption Office (OA) said that President Javier Milei did not break the law when he promoted the Libra token. According to the agency’s findings, Milei acted on his own behalf, not as a public official, and did not violate public ethics standards.