- Coffeezilla’s recent interview with Hayden Davis, the ‘mastermind’ behind the disastrous launches of $LIBRA and $MELANIA, has shown just how bad the world of memecoins has become.
- Davis revealed he sniped the launches of both $LIBRA and $MELANIA and has engaged in insider trading and secret endorsement deals, but claims this is all standard practice for memecoins and necessary to give the tokens a chance of success.
- Davis spent much of the interview justifying and normalising what goes on with memecoins and seemed out of touch with the damage it causes both to individual investors and the market.
Memecoins are a dirty business.
If there was ever any doubt about this fact, they can now be put to bed after investigative journalist Coffeezilla’s recent interview with Hayden Davis, the CEO of Kelsier Ventures and the ‘mastermind’ behind the disastrous launch of the doomed $LIBRA token.
During the interview we got a glimpse of just how the people launching these tokens are thinking — spoiler alert: they’re thinking ‘let’s dump on retail’. Among the revelations from the interview, Davis:
- Described how he and others behind the $LIBRA token ‘sniped’ their own launch.
- Essentially confirmed that the decision to refund losses incurred by Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy after $LIBRA’s price tanked was because Portnoy’s an insider.
- Confirmed he and his team were behind the farcical launch of the $MELANIA memecoin, which came hot on the heels of the $TRUMP ($13.40) memecoin, and in hindsight was a harbinger of doom.
- Claimed that attendees at Donald Trump’s crypto ball were offered the opportunity to buy $TRUMP before it launched — scammers gonna scam, I suppose.
Sniping refers to the use of a bot to buy tokens faster than anyone else immediately after a token launches in order to get the best possible price. It allows the buyer to later dump on retail investors and make huge, fast and easy profits. We’ve known about sniping for a long time, but most people didn’t assume the teams launching tokens were sniping their own projects.
In a further claim that will surprise no one, Davis said that he’s far from the only memecoin guy using these dodgy tactics. He explained that insider trading and sniping are standard practice across many crypto projects, but are particularly rife in the world of memecoins.
Related: Chow Down and Out: Insider Trading Allegations Following LIBRA Collapse Prompts Resignation of Meteora Co-Founder
Davis Sniped $LIBRA Launch for All The Right Reasons, Says Davis
So why exactly did Davis and his team decide to snipe their own token launch? If you thought it was to make huge profits at the expense of retail investors, you’re wrong according to Davis.
He made the dubious argument that he actually sniped his own launch to protect retail investors from other snipers, claiming:
So our goal was, can we take enough liquidity off to get all the snipers out, or at least control them so that when the chart dips down, it’s not going to crush the whole project…My point is, sniping, when you’re the team, I’m not saying it should always happen, but I’m saying a lot of times it’s to protect. And if there’s enough volume, take some off so that people can have a chance to pump the chart back up.
Hayden Davis, Mastermind behind launches of $LIBRA and $MELANIA Effectively Davis is saying that memecoins often need to be sniped by launch teams in order to drive the market cap and liquidity to a level where the project can survive sell-offs from whales. Of course, this begs the question — if a token can’t survive without dodgy dealing and scamming people, should that token survive?
Perhaps more to the point, should that token even exist to begin with?
Davis Engaged in Insider Trading but That’s OK ($0.00), Says Davis
As part of the $LIBRA launch, social media personality Dave Portnoy, along with many other crypto ‘key opinion leaders’ (KOLs), was ‘gifted’ millions of tokens to endorse the project. Portnoy has said he returned this gift because he didn’t feel comfortable with Davis’ insistence that it must be kept secret.
According to Davis, all memecoin projects engage in these kinds of insider trades and secret endorsement deals. These dodgy deals, claims Davis, play a crucial role in convincing retail investors to invest in these projects so the insiders can pump their bags. Davis also made the obvious, yet laughably out-of-touch point that only the non-insiders care about these deals:
People that get mad are the people that aren’t insiders…All the bitching on socials is all the people that don’t get into the deals. You’ll never hear them bitch if they’re in the deal.
Hayden Davis, Mastermind behind launches of $LIBRA and $MELANIA Incidentally, Dave Portnoy also bought a huge bag of $LIBRA with his own money but, like most other $LIBRA investors, he lost big on that trade. Not to worry though, Davis decided to refund Portnoy’s losses in full.
Related: Donald Trump’s Memecoin Plummets as Melania Trump Launches Own Coin
Davis Also Sniped $MELANIA But That’s Fine, Says Davis
Davis also revealed he was also the ‘mastermind’ behind the calamitous launch of the $MELANIA token, which has been widely criticised as being an obvious cash-grab — launching as it did, hot on the heels of the $TRUMP token. Not only was Davis behind $MELANIA, he also sniped it at launch just as he did with $LIBRA.
Davis justified this snipe by claiming his team was concerned about the possibility of other snipes after they observed a lot of sniping activity during the launch of $TRUMP:
I think the team did want to snipe it because of how big the snipe was on Trump’s [memecoin].
Hayden Davis, Mastermind behind launches of $LIBRA and $MELANIA It was never really clarified why Davis thinks sniping his own token launches is better than someone else sniping them. But that’s the depth of depravity memecoins have reached.
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