Trump’s promised crypto support has been coupled with irregularities and questionable trading skims. Since the launch of the TRUMP token and MELANIA token, there have been unusual trading activities even spreading to governance activities.
We’ve witnessed traders anticipating crashes and gains just minutes before FOMC meetings and policy announcements are official. Could this be a case of insider trading, and who is at the center of it? Let’s rewind the clock together.
Jan 17–20, 2025: Token launches and the “Crypto Ball” moment
$TRUMP memecoin rocked the headlines during its launch in mid-January 2025, quickly attracting attention and posting significant trading volume. It reached an ATH price of $74, growing its market cap to over $70B in the process.
This launch followed a crypto ball prepared at the US White House, and chart activity shows some people had prior information about the launch. Several key wallets bought the coin within seconds of launch, raking in Billions in profits.
$MELANIA and $TRUMP Controversy
Jan 20–21, 2025: Melania token launch and immediate market surge
Shortly after $TRUMP made billions for the “early” investors, a coin named after First Lady Melania Trump was launched. This coin didn’t have the success of its predecessor but raised even more eyebrows.
Early 2025 (weeks after launch): Rapid price volatility, alleged team sells, and ethics scrutiny rocked MELANIA token’s camp
Within weeks of launch, $MELANIA and $TRUMP experienced extreme volatility, sharp declines, and even reported team and advisor sales. Around this time, Melania Trump posted an AI video advertising the token, and questions were lingering about a $10M unexplained sell-off by the team.
The token was already trading at -98% from the launch price. Data from on-chain analytics firm LookonChain indicates that the team was using the DCA method to get reasonable sell-off prices for the coin, despite posing as if they were adding liquidity to the coin in exchanges.
Data from Bubblemaps, a crypto analytics firm, shows that the team had sold off $30M by April 7 silently from community funds.
Apr–May 2025: Token holder incentives and high-profile investor engagement
In the last week of April, President Trump announced an “intimate” crypto dinner with the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP token, which saw the coin’s price rally by $5 to around $14, which was still miles off the $74 mark that it had reached at its peak.
Several whales managed to take advantage of this rally “in time” adding to their already filled bags.
2nd March, the Federal Crypto Reserve Confirmation
On March 2, President Trump announced plans for a Federal Crypto Reserve on his Truth Social account. At the time, a very suspicious event happened. A whale went 50X long on Ethereum and Bitcoin with just $4M to create a $200M position.
He ended up raking in over $6.8M in profits all in a day’s work with his timing aligning perfectly with the US Crypto Reserve announcement. If the market dipped even slightly, he’d have been liquidated.
He went long at:
• $ETH at $2,197, liquidation at $2,149.4
• $BTC at $85,908, liquidation at $84,752
Is that just a coincidence or proof of something more?
October 2025: US Tariff Announcement Causes Abrupt Market Crash, and Opens Chance for Insider Trading
As if the crypto reserve call wasn’t suspicious enough, a recent announcement about Trump imposing a 100% tariff on certain Chinese tech sent the market into a tailspin, causing over $19B in liquidations within 24 hours.
The market had arguably been calm in prior hours, but activity from a few suspicious whales shows them creating very huge short positions several minutes before Trump’s announcement.
One in particular shorted $BTC and $ETH for $1.1B during the flash crash, opening the last short just one minute before Trump’s tweet.
Who Could It Be?
With the ongoing saga, the lingering question is who is doing insider trading? Here are some key figures who have been caught doing questionable trades around Trump’s announcements.
One trader by the handle @Garrettbullish on X was revealed by Binance ex-CEO, Changpeng Zhao, who accepted that he made the trades but denied having connections to the Trump family.
Even with on-chain data showing and supporting that the individual placed the suspicious trades, he maintains that he had no prior knowledge of the announcement.
This trader, using the handle @Qwatio on X, has been caught with several suspicious trades on separate occasions. An X user earmarked him for trading frantically between 12:00 PM and 3:00 AM around the Fed’s interest rate announcement, going long and short on BTC, turning $690,000 USDC into $1.826 million USDC, a 164% profit.
The exposee shows the trading activity as indicated below:
Specific operations:
1 At 2:00 AM, the Federal Reserve was about to announce its interest rate decision. Qwatio opened a short position of 326 BTC ($27.6M) at $84,566 at 12:00 AM, and then closed the position at $83,927 just before the decision was announced (1:48 AM), making a profit of $215,000.
2 As soon as the 2-point interest rate was announced, Qwatio immediately opened a short position of 256 BTC ($21.6M) at $84404 at 2:01, and quickly closed the position 6 minutes later at $83906, making a profit of $250,000;
3 After closing the short position, Qwatio immediately switched to long. He bought 518 BTC ($43.8M) at $84,500 at 2:10 AM. He then closed the position at $85,700 at 2:59 AM, making a profit of $620,000.
4 After closing the long position, Qwatio immediately went short again: opened a short position of 384 BTC ($32.9M) at $85666 at 3:00 AM, and closed the position 2 minutes later at $85146, making a profit of $106,000.
Naseem
Bubblemaps found evidence showing that a trader by the alias Naseem had “snipped” $TRUMP, turning $1.1M to over $100M. However, he has also been noticed as one of the very first buyers of the YZY token. They also found addresses linking to his own that had been used to snipe Libra and TRUMP.
These sniping skills are undeniable, but was he that lucky to get in early on YZY, TRUMP, LIBRA, and HAWK that consistently?
Looking Forward
The current situation around Trump’s crypto movements casts a long shadow on the legality of it all. More than ever before, the US is in the limelight, and it’s showing all the right reasons why a sound regulatory framework is needed.
Hopefully, a regulatory structure that closes such loopholes while protecting investors and enhancing industry growth will come soon.