The collapse of presidential meme coins: how a "quick harvest" left investors bankrupt

Months ago, when meme coins paid millions in commissions to platforms, two digital tokens based on the U.S. political family caused the biggest market manipulation scandal in cryptocurrency history. The TRUMP token skyrocketed from nearly zero to $74 in hours; its companion MELANIA reached $13. But what rose fast, fell even faster: both collapsed days later, losing 92-99% of their value.

While tens of thousands of ordinary traders were ruined, those “inside” the game earned astronomical figures. According to blockchain analysis, internal operators extracted over $350 million in profits. The government declared that “everything was legal,” but the reality tells a different story.

The “pump and dump” machine of the presidency: how meme coins became weapons for value extraction

To understand how this happened, we need to go back to January 2025. During a weekend of presidential celebrations, two tokens were launched simultaneously. Attendees at that night’s crypto gala didn’t even know they were participating in what would later be revealed as the industry’s most coordinated market manipulation operation.

Meme coins are not new. They originated as a joke in 2013 when two programmers chose the “Shiba Inu tilted” meme to satirize the proliferation of cryptocurrencies. What started as satire turned into a speculation machine: assets with no intrinsic value, no cash flow, no business model—just pure hype. Under traditional financial standards, they are worth zero dollars.

But meme coins pay real profits when they pay commissions. The platforms hosting them earn hundreds of millions annually in fees. The phenomenon exploded in 2024-2025, attracting public figures, influencers, and now, high-level politicians.

The mechanism is simple: someone creates a token with a popular theme, launches it at a minimal price, attracts traders through viral hype, the price exponentially rises, the “insiders” who entered first sell everything, and the price collapses, leaving late buyers destroyed. It’s speculation on speculation, market manipulation disguised as an “alternative asset.”

Behind the scenes: the network of operators “harvesting” presidential tokens

What’s fascinating about the presidential case is not just the scale but the network of coordinated actors. Bloomberg traced the blockchain transaction chain and uncovered connections revealing an orchestrated operation, not an impromptu launch as publicly claimed.

A crypto policy advisor executive contacted a platform trading those tokens weeks before the public announcement, requesting “technical support.” But according to blockchain evidence, the role was much more active: wallet addresses that bought TRUMP at launch with insider information made $100 million in three days. Another address bought MELANIA before it was publicly announced, extracting $2.4 million in profits.

Tracing the transaction chain, blockchain investigators discovered that both addresses belonged to the same operator or team. The “technical support” became a coordinated operation.

But there’s more. Weeks later, another national leader—in South America—launched a token that collapsed under identical circumstances. Re-tracing the blockchain, the wallet that created that token was connected to the one that operated MELANIA. Blockchain investigators concluded: the same team orchestrated multiple presidential “harvests” in different countries.

Who operated these wallets? A 29-year-old crypto advisor, nicknamed by his contacts as someone who “custodied funds” but actually coordinated everything. In a later recorded video call, this operator admitted to earning “astronomical figures” and confessed: “TRUMP gave me unprecedented power.”

When finally interviewed on a crypto scam podcast, the operator was brutally honest: “Meme coins are a regulation-free casino… everything is shit.” He admitted to participating in multiple presidential “pump and dump” schemes.

The Singaporean executive: “The dollar is also a meme coin”

But the operator was not the real mastermind. Behind him was an executive from a crypto platform with an avatar of an “astronaut cat,” based in Singapore, who built the technical infrastructure enabling these launches.

Ming Yeow Ng, a 40-year-old Singaporean, founded an exchange platform that became the home for TRUMP, MELANIA, and other presidential tokens. The platform earned tens of millions in commissions from the launch weekend, the second-highest volume in that platform’s history.

When Bloomberg confronted him at a cat café in Singapore, Ng was evasive but revealing. He insisted that his platform only provided “technical support” and did not participate in operations or manipulation. “I’m not interested in moral judgments,” he said, “just the facts.”

But then Ng expressed his true philosophy: “All financial assets are meme coins, including the dollar. The dollar is a meme coin! Everything is a meme coin.”

Ng argued that judging the entire crypto sector by scams is unfair. He uses the metaphor of “not throwing out the baby with the bathwater”: there’s dirt in the tub, but there’s also “a real baby.” Operators like the crypto policy advisor who coordinated multiple tokens would be “those who dirty the bath.”

When asked if he asked the operator to stay away from his platform, Ng evasively replied: “It’s hard to judge. I only saw him for about 20 minutes.”

Ng revealed his real ambition: “The currency can be infinite. What if we create one for every problem?” His goal is not to create a “fair” platform but to become the infrastructure of a new financial system where anyone can issue infinite tokens, without regulation.

The regulators’ silence: how “meme coins pay” while watchdogs disappear

Here’s the real scandal: none of this is illegal under current regulators.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced a month after the collapse that it would “not regulate” meme coins. It only warned that “other anti-fraud laws could apply,” but so far, no regulator has acted.

In traditional markets, if someone makes millions with suspicious transactions, regulators can review private records, analyze trading patterns, and seek evidence of manipulation. But with cryptocurrencies, oversight is “distant.”

Blockchain is public—the transactions are there, traceable, demonstrating suspicious flows of money and profits. But without regulatory intervention, it’s like having a confessed crime with no judge to judge it.

A New York lawyer specializing in crypto fraud describes meme coins as “the ultimate value extraction machine designed by very capable people.” He has filed lawsuits against platforms and operators for repeated market manipulation, but Trump and his family have not been charged with irregularities. All defendants deny the charges.

The epilogue: when hype dies, only losses remain

As of December 10, TRUMP had fallen 92% from its peak, trading at $5.90. MELANIA plummeted 99%, to just $0.11—practically worthless.

Tens of thousands of retail investors were destroyed. Meanwhile, those “inside” withdrew hundreds of millions.

The advisory operator became a “pariah” in the crypto sector. His networks are inactive, but blockchain shows he continues to operate new meme coins. The Singaporean executive launched his own cryptocurrency in October with a capitalization of over $300 million.

The cruel lesson: as long as those who help launch and promote meme coins remain silent (y even more so the political family backing them ), it will be impossible to know exactly how they made so much in so little time.

Meme coins will not disappear. They will continue to attract uninformed investors because they offer what the market wants: “make money fast without effort.” And as platforms earn millions in commissions and internal operators extract hundreds of millions, the machine will keep turning.

The real meme coin, in the end, is believing that this will ever be regulated.