The latest madness that started with US President Donald Trump’s Trump Memecoin launch and then dealers earn and lose millions within minutes, might have finally come down with the weight token -fiasko.
The weight, a Solana-based project that President of Argentina Javier Milei twited on February 14, so its market capital rise as high as $ 4.5 billion and then fall more than 80% within a few hours when insiders pay out, Which left many bag holders with massive losses.
History became an international and political event over the weekend when Milei deleted his original tweet in the last few days, denied his endorsement, and accused the political opposition from Mischief. This eventually led to conversations about his impeachment and created uncertainty in the Argentine stock market. Then an explosive VRI came to the story.
On Tuesday, Coindesk the news that a key player behind the weight token had boasted of buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei’s inner circle months before Memecoin’s scandalous launch and crash.
Although these kinds of kerfuffle for a memCoin are not unusual, how this happened and what followed the apparent “rug trait” highlighted the risk of uncontrolled crypto trade and the potential of a reputation hit for the Memecoin sector as a whole.
“The weight episode represents what is a potential translation for the Memecoin space,” Toronto-based crypto platform said Frnt Financial. “At this point, the news is in new projects, after Trump and Melania, and now the weight, largely worn out.”
“In addition, the reputation of the reputation for these assets may be significant. That said, it seems that this episode is likely to continue to play when new details emerge. At this point, Memecoin’s synonymous with ‘pump and dump ‘schemes, ”Frnt Compete.
This incident along with other Memecoin-related events that led to many retailers lost money can push society to make more efforts for the police themselves.
“The entire $ Libra Memecoin failure over the weekend should serve as a reminder that we all in the defic community have a responsibility to make this space safer for users,” said Chris Chung, founder of Solana-based swap platform titanium.
How ‘failure’ happened
The whole of Milei and the Libra episode played out within a few days, starting on February 14.
As explained by the Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn, the token was launched on the fateful day of a Solana -based Dex Meteora, with Milei’s first post (now deleted) on social media platform x and said the purpose of the token was to help the growth of Argentine economy – a Great endorsement for a Memecoin.
When the Token Prize reached its peak of $ 4.4 billion within hours, insiders began to dump their inventory immediately and earned nearly $ 100 million, according to onchain analysts.
The next day, Milei deleted his original post and sent a shock wave within the Memecoin community, so many similar smokes, such as Trump, Milan and others, quickly sold out. Meanwhile, Solana, Blockchain Token was built on, so also its native token, sun, fall.
In his new post, Milei claimed he was not aware of the details of the project and accused the political opposition to evil, making the situation a policy game. At that time, the token had deleted about $ 4.5 billion retail capital in seven hours. Currently, the market capital sits just over half a million, according to CoinMarketcap data.
On the same day, the names of a few most important opinion leaders (COPD) came up, including Barstools Dave Portnoy, Threadguy, Hayden Davis and FaZe Banks involved somehow with the project. Portnoy said he was an early investor and was repaid his money, which further spread the controversy that insiders take advantage of the weight failure. Davis, meanwhile, revealed that he was behind both the weight and Melania Memecoins, saying that the Argentine token event was “not a carpet pull”, rather “, it is just a plan that has gone miserably wrong.”
The next day, the Argentine opposition Milei threatened with forgery over the incident. On February 17, Ben Chow, co -founder of Dex Meteora, with the weight launched, withdrew over the controversy. Chow was also co-founder of Solana-based trading unit Jupiter. On the same day, Argentina’s stock market collapsed almost 6% on a report on a probe of Milei.
Read more: The weight apparently carpet cover is the latest ‘Sordid episode’ that comes from Solana’s Memecoin complex: Galaxy
On February 18, Coindesk news that Davis claimed in text messages that he could “control” Milei due to payments he had made to Karina Milei, a powerful figure in Milei’s government and the president’s sister.
‘Backlash to crypto’
What will happen to Milei and all the parties involved are still unknown. But if FTX’s spectacular blowout is something to pass by, there may still be much more to detach in this story.
What it highlights is that the Memecoin drama, which has become a game of profits in split-second and loss, in this cycle, can be on a crossroads. As institutional investors are investing heavily in Bitcoin and Ether with the launch of exchange-transmitted funds, making these assets more traditional and stable, Memecoin sector has.
“Overall, this whole story is a real setback for the crypto area,” Chung said. “If we want to attract new retail users, that’s not the way to do it.”
