Research by Global Ledger shows that scammers leveraged the TRUMP meme coin hype to steal over $857 million from the crypto market in the past week.
Scammers allegedly created tokens representing other national leaders, sent them to major TRUMP wallet holders to establish legitimacy, and then initiated a rug pull.
TRUMP Meme Coin Hype Created a Rug Pull Frenzy
Donald Trump launched a meme coin, TRUMP, last Friday, igniting a chaotic buzz across the crypto market. By Wednesday, the token’s market cap hit $8 billion, following a peak of $15 billion on Sunday.
Fraudsters have been exploiting the token’s popularity by sending fake coins to wallets associated with the TRUMP team and its creators. Crypto traders, closely watching these wallets, mistakenly bought these worthless tokens.
They assumed that the TRUMP meme coin team was intentionally buying these tokens and had insider knowledge. Scammers anticipated this behavior and capitalized on it.
According to Global Ledger, at least $857.5 million has been generated through four scam tokens tied to international figures. These tokens—JMilei, MELON, WTRUMP, and PUTIN—were cashed out on major exchanges, including Binance, OKX, Crypto.com, and Bybit.
Further investigations found that three tokens—PUTIN, KING, and BUFFET—were linked to the same deposit wallets on Binance. These wallets withdrew $91.3 million.
The pattern suggests that a single entity or group created and cashed out these tokens.
Earlier reports highlight that just 40 wallets control 94% of the total supply of TRUMP and MELANIA meme tokens.
Despite this concentration, most holders are small-scale investors, with over 80% owning less than $1,000 worth of tokens on Solana.
Additionally, 42% of TRUMP and MELANIA token buyers are first-time crypto investors, according to a separate survey.
“Now is the time to talk about the fact that large-scale political coins cross a further line: they are not just sources of fun, whose harm is at most contained to mistakes made by voluntary participants, they are vehicles for unlimited political bribery, including from foreign nation states,” Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Butein recently wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Meanwhile, Ryan Fournier, chairman of Students for Trump, has been scrutinized for allegedly triggering a rug pull in the TIKTOK meme coin.
On-chain data shows Fournier sold $700,000 worth of the token, draining liquidity and causing its market value to plunge. Fournier denies any wrongdoing.
Overall, scammers are exploiting the current meme coin hype to the fullest extent. Users must stay cautious and understand the dangers and profound volatility of these tokens.
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