A lawsuit filed on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, in Manhattan federal court accuses the creators of the $MELANIA meme coin of orchestrating a "pump-and-dump" scheme that caused its value to plummet. The former First Lady, Melania Trump, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Here are the key details of the case:
The Allegation: Investors allege that executives at the Meteora cryptocurrency exchange platform and Kelsier Ventures orchestrated a coordinated scheme around both the $MELANIA and $TRUMP tokens. The complaint describes a "liquidity trap" where the coin's creators allegedly used a pump-and-dump strategy.
Melania Trump's Role: The plaintiffs state that Melania Trump was not "culpable" but that her persona was used as "window dressing" to lend the tokens a sense of legitimacy. The tokens, including the official Melania Trump-branded $MELANIA coin, were marketed by leveraging her public persona.
The Launch and Collapse: The $MELANIA coin was launched in January 2025, just before Donald Trump's inauguration as president. Its price quickly spiked to over $13.73 within hours before crashing to around 10 cents, a fraction of its peak value.
Insider Trading Claims: The coin's collapse happened amidst allegations of developer control and insider trading. The court papers filed Tuesday specifically accuse the executives of setting up a way to indirectly purchase large amounts of the coin before quickly reselling them for significant profit as the price collapsed.
Additional Defendants: Argentina's President Javier Milei is also named in the lawsuit, facing direct fraud charges for promoting the LIBRA token (another token involved in the scheme) on social media. He later deleted the post after its crash
