Hayden Mark Devis, CEO of Kelsier Ventures, has finally come clean about manipulating his own memecoin. In a revealing interview with Coffeezilla, Devis admitted to orchestrating a sophisticated sniping operation during the LIBRA token launch – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Working alongside his father Tom Davis and associate Arunkumar Sugadevan, Devis deployed multiple wallet addresses to snatch up massive quantities of LIBRA tokens before regular investors could even click “buy.” The team then dumped over $100 million worth of tokens at the market peak. Nice work if you can get it, right?
Team exploited early token access to bag millions while retail investors watched helplessly from the sidelines.
But wait, there’s more. One particularly interesting wallet spent $5.6 million to acquire 2.1 million LIBRA tokens, only to sell them for a whopping $5.17 million loss. Mysteriously, that same wallet later received a convenient $5 million USDC compensation. Dave Portnoy’s early purchase following Milei’s tweet raised serious concerns about insider trading. Funny how that works.
The scandal doesn’t stop at LIBRA. Devis also confessed to involvement in the MELANIA memecoin launch, which debuted with a staggering $2.1 billion market cap. While the team claimed they didn’t profit from MELANIA’s liquidity, on-chain data tells a different story. A wallet labeled “0xcEA” sniped the MELANIA token for a cool $2.4 million profit. Initial investors were devastated when the token’s value dropped by 96% within hours.
The fallout has been spectacular. The LIBRA crash wiped out $4.4 billion in investor funds and sparked a political crisis for Argentine President Milei. The incident highlights why market volatility has become a defining characteristic of meme coins in 2024.
Through crosschain transfers and multiple wallets, the team expertly covered their tracks, using influencers and celebrities to pump their memecoins before pulling the rug.
All this manipulation has exposed the wild west nature of unregulated memecoin markets. The team’s coordinated efforts to acquire tokens early, dump them at peak prices, and obscure their transaction history through complex wallet networks shows just how sophisticated these operations have become.
And here’s the kicker – they almost got away with it.
