From Dream to Collapse: How Crypto Giants Launched a Meme Coin for the President and Escaped with Hundreds of Millions

Foreign investors, top managers of a crypto exchange, and a student-founder of a Meme coin platform together created the biggest financial spectacle of the year. They earned over $350 million, leaving hundreds of thousands of ordinary investors empty-handed. But only a select few know how they did it.

Balus and chaos: how the Trump cryptocurrency revolution started

On January 17, 2025, near the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, the crypto elite gathered. From the street, it looked like an ordinary innovation forum, but inside, something more significant was happening: a Speaker of the House, political advisors, former officials, even Snoop Dogg as a DJ. It was a crypto ball with tickets costing $2,500.

After lunch, when many guests scrolled through social media on their smartphones, an announcement appeared. A message about the launch of a new cryptocurrency — TRUMP — was posted on Truth Social. The token’s price instantly surged. That same evening, it was revealed that the president’s wife also issued her own token — MELANIA. Within a few hours, the market capitalization of both tokens, controlled by the family and their partners, exceeded $5 billion.

Then everything collapsed.

Within weeks, prices fell more than 90%. Hundreds of thousands of people who bought at the hype lost their investments. Crypto traders accused the family of fraud. Critics called it corruption — a way for foreign investors to anonymously send unlimited funds to the president. The new administration assured that “everything is legal” and there are “no conflicts of interest.”

“I don’t know anything about this. I only heard it’s very successful,” the president replied at his first press conference after the inauguration.

But investigations showed: the person who truly launched these tokens is trying to stay in the shadows. It’s a group of people who managed to turn hype into gold and outsmart regulators.

Meme coin metamorphosis: from joke to scam industry

To understand the Trump story, start with the origins of Meme coin.

In 2013, two programmers took the meme of the popular Shiba Inu dog and created Dogecoin as a joke about the wave of new digital currencies. They wanted to mock this trend, but the opposite happened — investors flocked to buy, and within a few weeks, the market cap exceeded $12 million. Fanatics even sponsored a NASCAR team.

Over the years, Meme coins kept appearing again and again. When Elon Musk started promoting Dogecoin, the launch pace sharply increased. Every popular internet article, meme, or news became the basis for a new Meme coin.

This contradicted all financial principles. Even the biggest stock market bubbles are based on some optimism about a company or industry. Meme coins never had a product, cash flow, or any real value — by traditional standards, they are worthless. The only way to profit is to make the next buyers buy at a higher price. It’s pure speculation on speculation.

“According to the efficient market hypothesis, this shouldn’t work, but in practice, it makes money,” says one top manager in the crypto industry.

Platforms for launching Meme coins, like volcanoes, erupted with profits. The most popular one in January 2024 collected about $1 billion in fees. Its 22-year-old founder looked nervously sitting in a Manhattan café — he was worried about his new wealth due to the wave of thefts in the crypto sphere. Even the legal name of the company is in open registries; he did not disclose his country of residence.

Anyone can register on this platform — no programming, documents, or blockchain knowledge needed. Every hot news could become a Meme coin. To attract attention, token creators broadcast the most absurd tricks — erotic shows, fentanyl use, animal beheadings. Even tragedies became raw material for tokens.

Buying a token is simple: starting price — fractions of a cent. Users — mostly young men discussing deals on X and Discord. If a token gains enough attention, it gets listed on major exchanges, and its price rises even more. In a few hours, you can earn tenfold.

But there was one forgotten harsh law in this market: only those who got out early win. Everyone else is just raw material for insider enrichment.

Architects of the bubble: from an Argentine student to a Singaporean philosopher

Who created this money-sucking machine? An investigation uncovered three key figures.

First — Hayden Davis, 29, a student from Virginia. He dropped out of an evangelical university and became an advisor to Argentine President Javier Milei. With his team, Davis created Kelsier Ventures — an analog of an investment bank for crypto. They launched Meme coins for various celebrities and politicians.

On February 14, 2025, Milei supported a token called Libra. Within hours, its price plummeted, and the president urgently deleted the post. But blockchain doesn’t forget. Analyzing transactions, it was possible to trace that someone bought this token seconds before the launch and sold it with a $100 million profit — apparently knowing about it in advance.

When the investigation exploded, Davis recorded a video admitting his role. Wearing a striped Moncler hoodie and with messy hair, he tried to look serious, but it was comical. He claimed he earned $100 million on Libra but called it “trusted funds.” In a text message to his partners, he wrote: “Guys, honestly, we’re here to squeeze the maximum out of the token.” But when journalists dug deeper, Davis suddenly stopped responding.

Second — Moti Poworolotsky, a former Davis associate turned “whistleblower.” After the Libra collapse, he publicly revealed what they did together. According to him, Davis hired his team “to help with Meme coin trading,” but from the start, the goal was the same — make as much money as possible, regardless of the method.

Poworolotsky said he issued about 10 million MELANIA tokens to a partner and ordered them to sell when the market cap reached a certain point. All transactions were anonymous. When Poworolotsky asked a more influential person — a top manager of a crypto exchange — for answers, he was ignored. But via SMS, he leaked information linking Davis to the launch of Trump’s token.

Third — Wu Minyao, who hides under the pseudonym Meow with a cat-astronaut avatar. He is a 40-year-old Singaporean who launched a popular crypto trading app. His exchange became the main platform for launching TRUMP, MELANIA, and LIBRA — the Argentine president’s tokens.

According to crypto analysts, 90% of Wu Minyao’s exchange revenue in a year came from Meme coins. This indicated how deeply involved he was in this business.

Wu Minyao lives by the philosophy of “free crypto market.” He wrote that discovering new currencies is the key to a “fairer future.” Even the dollar, in his view, is also a Meme coin because its value is based on shared belief. At the Catstanbul conference he organized after the Trump token launch, in the style of Burning Man, they burned a 15-foot cat sculpture with red eyes. It was a celebration of victory.

Investigation line: how to find invisible organizers

The official side was simple: on the TRUMP website, only an address of a UPS near a tire repair shop in Florida and the company name “Fight Fight Fight LLC” were listed. No real persons were indicated.

But in Delaware state documents, a name appeared — Bill Zanker. The 71-year-old entrepreneur was an icon of American “self-help” — wrote books about success, organized seminars, promoted crowdfunding projects. In 2007, he co-authored a book with the president, “Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and Life.”

Over the years, they conducted numerous “monetized” projects together — from NFT with a cartoon Trump as a superhero, which brought the president $7 million in licensing fees, to clothing lines and accessories. Zanker was a master of provocative marketing, knowing how to turn anything into money.

When asked about Meme coins, Zanker became very opaque. His numbers didn’t match, texts and messages were ignored. The only clue — his son is in the crypto business, met by journalists at a conference in a Moncler puffer jacket, photographing celebrities. When asked about tokens, his son replied: “I respect your work, but I don’t give interviews.”

But then, in April 2025, an announcement appeared on the TRUMP site about a luxurious dinner with the president for the 220 biggest token buyers. The attraction of golden tails — and Zanker was the host of the dinner in a blue suit, holding a magazine with the portrait of the largest token holder on the cover.

The president arrived by helicopter, delivered a standard speech about cryptocurrencies, and left. It was “influence renting” for those who earned billions on tokens.

How they did it: insider trading without regulation

The math of enrichment was simple but colorless:

Step one: Someone — (obviously Davis, Wu Minyao, or their team) — knew when TRUMP and MELANIA would be launched.

Step two: Microseconds before the public launch, they bought tokens for pennies.

Step three: They broadcast the announcement, attracting millions of hype traders.

Step four: The price grew exponentially. TRUMP rose to $74, MELANIA to $13.

Step five: Smart players sold. Naive ones kept buying, thinking the rise would continue.

Step six: Prices collapsed by 90-99%. Naive investors lost everything. Insiders withdrew hundreds of millions.

On Wall Street, this is called insider trading — a federal crime. But in the crypto world, no one is prosecuted under regulation.

Blockchain analysts found evidence: one address bought TRUMP for $1.1 million seconds before the launch and sold it three days later with a $100 million profit. Another address bought MELANIA before the public launch and earned $2.4 million. Both addresses belonged to one person or team — probably Davis and his partners.

Davis used the same scheme with the Argentine president’s token.

Two months later, when the Argentine president got into a scandal, Davis gave an interview to a YouTube blogger about how this business is really built. He admitted: Meme coin is “an uncontrolled casino,” the industry itself is “dirty,” and what his team does is “sniping”: experienced traders mass-buy new tokens using insider info, then sell when naive investors jump in. He called it “a protective measure to prevent others from quickly looting retail investors” — as if robbery is done for humanitarian reasons.

Why regulators are silent

Two months later, the US SEC issued an official statement: the agency will not regulate Meme coins. It only noted that “other fraud laws may apply.”

This was a clear capitulation. Fraud remains fraud in any form, but the agency essentially said it would not pursue investigations. No other regulator intervened either.

Why? Because the crypto industry received political cover. The president promised to “loosen crypto regulation,” and his administration fulfilled the promise. Several crypto companies donated millions to the presidential inauguration. Now they had guarantees: their business would be protected from scrutiny.

Moreover, Trump pardoned the founder of one of the major crypto exchanges, who was under fraud charges. It is reported that the exchange supported other family crypto projects. It was a quid pro quo.

Ecosystem of conflicts of interest

The president and his family built what lawyers call a “diversified conflict of interest portfolio”:

• The president promoted the idea of “strategic Bitcoin reserves for the US,” which would increase the value of crypto in his assets;
• His son owns a Bitcoin mining company;
• The government promotes a deal to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, and the Trump family licenses a brand for a skyscraper in Jeddah;
• Other family members are involved in various crypto projects.

All accusations of conflicts of interest are met with the same response: it’s not true, the president has no conflicts, and his personal finances do not influence policy. The White House spokesperson called the corruption hints “absurd.”

But facts tell a different story.

Finalization: wave decline and permission for further plundering

A month after launch, both tokens fell 92-99% from their peaks. Cunning investors who exited early were in profit. The rest lost everything.

According to analytics, Meme coin trading volumes in November dropped 92% from January’s peak. The hype is over. The stars who promoted the tokens moved on to other projects — now they promote “prediction markets” based on blockchain, previously banned by regulators as illegal gambling.

Davis became an outcast in the crypto industry — a rare achievement in a sphere where rules don’t matter. His social networks are silent, but blockchain shows his wallet still trades Meme coins.

His whistleblower, Poworolotsky, suddenly became silent — apparently receiving a warning.

Wu Minyao came out of the shadows enough to tell journalists his version: his company only provided “technical assistance” and “did not participate in trading.” His company’s cryptocurrency already reached a market cap of over $300 million in October.

Zanker remains invisible.

At a press conference, the president simply said he “knows nothing” about the tokens he launched.

Epilogue: new financial utopia or old robbery

When asked if it’s fraud, crypto builders give philosophical answers.

“Dollar is also a Meme coin,” says Wu Minyao, “because its value is based on shared belief. What if we created a separate currency for each problem?”

“Cryptocurrency is a microcosm reflecting what the world truly wants. And the world wants to make quick money without doing anything,” he adds with a smile.

Hundreds of thousands who lost money on TRUMP and MELANIA have a different opinion. But no one hears their voices.

The meme-crypto industry continues doing what it was created for: squeezing value from naive investors, leaving bubble architects safe on the ground.

In the world of cryptocurrencies, where rules are just suggestions, this happens every day.