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Molly WhiteNewsletter: A major crypto scandal tarnishes the reputation of Solana bigwigs, crypto influencers, and Argentine President Javier Milei.
“This is FTX type of shit,” said a crypto founder confronting Meteora’s Ben Chow over alleged insider trading.
After Trump’s memecoin launch, several countries and politicians have launched or promoted cryptocurrency tokens (or appeared to). It’s not gone well.
But it’s gone the worst, by far, for Argentina’s President Javier Milei, whose promotion of a crypto memecoin that later rugpulled has resulted in calls for his impeachment and criminal charges. And the fiasco has exposed what appears to be a huge memecoin insider trading ring.
Hayden Davis, the man who helped launch the Milei-promoted LIBRA token, also helped to launch the MELANIA memecoin by the now First Lady. Davis claimed in text messages to “control” Milei, writing “I send $$ to his sister and he signs whatever I say and does what I want”.
Davis outright admitted that he and the LIBRA team had “sniped” their own token — a type of insider trading involving buying up huge quantities of LIBRA immediately upon launch, which left them with tokens notionally worth around $100 million.
The rot exposed here seems to go far deeper than a random blockchain VC firm. Those behind massive Solana projects including Meteora and Jupiter have been accused of involvement in a massive insider trading scheme. Meteora’s cofounder has already resigned.
A crypto founder confronted Meteora’s Ben Chow on a call that later leaked, stating “whenever presidents get involved, and if they become angry, you know, you don't want to be there”.
“This isn't $20. This is not $100 million. This is like 200 to— this is FTX type of shit.”
The whole call, between crypto founder Moty Povolotski confronting Meteora co-founder Ben Chow after witnessing the insider trading in person, is so bonkers that I just transcribed the whole thing for you.
https://www.citationneeded.news/meteora-ben-chow-call-transcript/
Meanwhile, Argentine politicians are calling for Milei’s impeachment, and more than 100 lawsuits have been filed against him. His attempt to do a damage control interview backfired, exposing his intent to use state legal resources to defend himself.
Back in the US, where a president attempting to use state legal resources on his personal defense probably wouldn’t hit the top ten list of presidential misconduct this week, the US government has released the imprisoned Russian BTC-e co-founder Alexander Vinnik.
One of the accused perpetrators of the SafeMoon fraud has tried to delay his trial by arguing that his crypto crimes might soon be legal. Prosecutors pointed out that there are (as yet) no plans to legalize wire fraud, and the trial will continue as scheduled.
However, Coinbase is likely to benefit from such an argument, as the SEC has requested a delay in the case against the exchange, anticipating that Trump’s crypto task force “could facilitate the potential resolution” of the case.
Finally, a fourth Andreessen Horowitz employee will be taking a key role under Trump, with cryptocurrency policy lead Brian Quintenz up for nomination as CFTC Chair. He will help install the friendly regulatory policy a16z has spent $75M+ to essentially write themselves.
That and more in today’s issue of Citation Needed. Please consider signing up for a free or pay-what-you-want subscription to support my work, which is completely independent and entirely possible thanks to readers like you.
Jeff@molly0xfff Just sayin', the news was still hitting around the firings on Friday last week. "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre (2025)" is right there.
Also, what a disambiguation page for Wikipedia!
The Dubster@molly0xfff Looks like you're gonna be very busy from now on. Thanks for the good work.
tylercheung@molly0xfff this might be a little bit off-topic, but in the time you’ve started hosting your own blog/newsletter, are you seeing a ton of AI bot scraping traffic? If so, how do you mitigate this?
@tylercheung i don’t try to mitigate it, personally, besides using a CDN to absorb load spikes
Bradley Stowers> regulatory policy a16z has spent $75M+ to essentially write themselves.
You misspelled "buy".
Marcos Dione
Peter Amstutz@molly0xfff
I gotta say, when I first heard about SafeMoon, with such an obviously manipulative name (it's "safe" and it's "going to the moon!" protests too much) it's like a classic Nigerian prince scam where anyone with a lick of common sense sees it for what it is, but there are still enough people who are sufficiently ignorant and greedy to keep the scam alive.
I gotta say, when I first heard about SafeMoon, with such an obviously manipulative name (it's "safe" and it's "going to the moon!" protests too much) it's like a classic Nigerian prince scam where anyone with a lick of common sense sees it for what it is, but there are still enough people who are sufficiently ignorant and greedy to keep the scam alive.
@molly0xfff And Montana Senator Daines visited President Milei in Buenos Aires.
Bssr4 (TЯ☭M₽ )Just like Trump is doing with the DOJ & Cabinet, personal allocation of justice
protection for himself.
Eibriel@molly0xfff Amazing coverage of the LIBRA launch. The level of detail is comparable to local news 👏👏👏
Glyph@molly0xfff it seems like 2025 is generating a *lot* of work for you
@molly0xfff thank you for doing it, but I'm sorry it needs to be done
Welcome to the world of unregulated anonymous transactions
Gurre Vildskägg@molly0xfff
Good thread!
And it really is all going just as above board and in the public interest as so many feared it always would with these guys in control. Yay :(
Ji-eun Choi@molly0xfff so the argentinuan president invested in crypto?
Darryl RammDamn it, when listening to this podcast I keep imagining Josh Barro's voice asking if Burwick Law is a good memecoin issuer 🙂