Ryan Selkis Urges Trump to Fire MELANIA Coin Creator Amid Market Controversy

Messari founder Ryan Selkis has urged future President Donald Trump to fire the team behind the launch of the MELANIA meme coin.

According to him, the launch was poorly executed, undermined Trump’s financial interests and damaged some of the public goodwill he has enjoyed since winning the US presidential election in November 2024.

Market collision between two currencies Meme

On January 19 mail In

This was after the meme coin’s debut dropped the value of another Trump-affiliated token known as Official Trump (TRUMP) by nearly 50% and wiped out billions of dollars.

Unveiled to the public on Friday, TRUMP’s market value peaked at $15 billion almost two days later, surpassing meme heavyweights like Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Pepe (PEPE) and even threatening with entering among the ten largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. . However, MELANIA stole some of that thunder after her performance, with the TRUMP token falling from a high of $75 per CoinMarketCap data to around $38.

The First Lady’s coin jumped to a fully diluted valuation of $9.99 billion, while the President’s retains a market capitalization of $10.74 billion, ranking 21st among cryptocurrencies.

It is this turn of events that so upset Selkis, with the Trump supporter suggesting that the ill-timed launch of the second token cannibalized the value of the first coin and painted the initiative as opportunistic. However, he refrained from directly blaming the president for the debacle, noting that he is focused on other pressing issues, such as his inauguration.

However, he expressed frustration over what he believes is a lack of crypto-native expertise within Trump’s advisory circle. suggestion would be willing to help the new administration avoid similar mistakes in the future.

Critics’ claims launched due to “greed”

Some commentators, such as Delphi Labs founding partner José María Macedo, have speculated that the decision to release MELANIA could have been driven by greed. Macedo suggested that insiders who missed out on the gains made with the initial launch may have tried to capitalize on the second meme coin.

While this is largely an unproven theory, MELANIA’s unusual economic model could give it some credence: it includes a 35% allocation to the team with a lock-in period of just 30 days, much shorter than the lock-up period. TRUMP’s three-year vesting.

Data from crypto trading platform GMNG also revealed that a very profitable address spent $800,000 on MELANIA tokens before selling them for $38.6 million shortly after the launch. This rapid profit-taking could further fuel skepticism about the integrity of the project, and even raise concerns about insider trading.