Another Trump-linked sell-off? Melania meme team dumps $35.7M in tokens

Insider activity is picking up across Trump family-linked crypto projects, with wallets offloading tens of millions of dollars in tokens.

The team behind the Melania Trump-themed meme coin $MELANIA (MELANIA)has sold 82.18 million tokens over the past four months, according to Lookonchain data. Spread across 44 wallets, the sales accounted for roughly 8.22% of the total supply and were exchanged for 244,934 SOL (SOL), worth approximately $35.76 million at the time.

Most of the MELANIA sales were executed through liquidity manipulation, adding and removing liquidity from pools, a method often used to avoid slippage and reduce market impact by minimizing direct sell pressure.

In a separate recent move, the team behind the official Trump-themed memecoin, $TRUMP (TRUMP), withdrew $4.4 million in USDC and 347,438 $TRUMP (worth $3.12 million) from liquidity pools. The USDC was bridged to Ethereum, and the tokens were transferred to a new wallet. This kind of activity, pulling liquidity and moving tokens, is a common on-chain pattern seen before insider sales, suggesting that the team may be gearing up to dump.

While there’s no direct link between the wallet movements, the timing and tactics point to a broader pattern of coordinated sell-offs across Trump-themed crypto ventures.

Are the Trumps scaling back their crypto empire?

Earlier this week, a Forbes report revealed that the Trump family quietly reduced its stake in World Liberty Financial (WLFI) from 60% to 40%, executed through undisclosed transactions carried out over a two-week period.

The dump was carried out by DT Marks DEFI LLC, a holding company controlled by Donald Trump and his sons. This marked the third stake reduction in just six months, down from 75% in December to 60% in January, and now to 40%.

No official comments have been provided regarding the sales by the family, and the reasons for the coordinated sell-offs remain unclear. However, the pattern suggests a strategic effort to reduce exposure while maintaining enough public momentum around the projects.

At the same time, major holders of the official $TRUMP meme coin have also been trimming their positions. One whale recently dumped around 375,000 $TRUMP, worth approximately $4.9 million. 

The $TRUMP token is trading at $8.90 at press time, down roughly 30% over the past month. $MELANIA is down nearly 50% over the same period, now trading at $0.91.