Melania team fuels sell-off with $1.5 million dump despite slow rug pull concerns

The controversy surrounding the MELANIA team’s profit-taking continues to intensify after the team sold off $1.5 million worth of the memecoin over the last three days. Onchain tracker Lookonchain reported the latest sell-offs.

According to Lookonchain, the team is utilizing a dollar-cost average (DCA) strategy for direct sales of the MELANIA token. Two days ago, they sold 1.18 million MELANIA for $632,000 worth of SOL using the strategy, followed by the sale of another 2.01 million MELANIA for $938,000 today.

Lookonchain said:

“The #Melania team didn’t just add or remove liquidity to sell $MELANIA, they also employed a DCA strategy for direct sales!”

DCA is a strategy where the investor buys or sells a specified amount of an asset once it hits a particular price. This selling method can be programmed, allowing the dumping of tokens at intervals.

By adopting this strategy, the project team adds to the selling pressure that is already on MELANIA due to its over a month-long sell-off through exchange sales and unilateral liquidity to the MELANIA/SOL pool.

With the latest sales, the MELANIA team has now dumped over 33 million tokens since March 16 while raking in almost $20 million in SOL from the sales. The profit taking has continued despite concerns of a slow rug pull.

MELANIA no longer mirroring TRUMP performance

Meanwhile, the continued sell-off of MELANIA is now affecting its performance. Although the memecoin is up 21% in the past week, it may not be able to defy the continued selling pressure for long.

The reason behind its rise earlier was the TRUMP memecoin team announcing an exclusive dinner for the top 220 holders of TRUMP. While the news caused TRUMP token to rise and pushed MELANIA’s value due to its affiliation, there is now a divergence in their price performances.

TRUMP is up 2% today and is currently trading above $15, while MELANIA has fallen more than 6% to $0.4511. That divergence will likely continue given that even in the past week, MELANIA only gained 21% compared to over 80% gained for TRUMP.

TRUMP memecoin’s recent gains have allowed it to wipe off medium-term losses, with the token showing positive 48% performance in 30 days. However, MELANIA is still down 26.54% in that period as it has not been able to sustain its gains.

The divergence is not surprising given how the sell-offs have affected interest in MELANIA and piled more selling pressure on the token. Its 24-hour trading volume according to CoinMarketCap, is less than $30 million despite a circulating supply of 550 million tokens.

By comparison, TRUMP’s circulating supply of 200 million tokens has had over $1.47 billion in trading volume. This is a reflection of the demand in the asset and its sustained buying pressure.

However, one thing that both memecoins have in common is that most of those who bought them are in the red. TRUMP is down 79% from its peak price, while MELANIA has lost 96.5% of its value since reaching its all-time high.

Whale shorts TRUMP despite recovery trend

Despite TRUMP memecoin enjoying a resurgence in performance, one whale is betting on its subsequent decline. According to Lookonchain, the whale funded a new wallet with $1.33 million in USDC to short the token on Hyperliquid.

The whale has an entry price of $14.787, with their liquidation price at $21.528, showing that they do not expect the current momentum to last. This is coming at a time when the token has the top netflow in the last 24 hours.

Nevertheless, some people believe the bearish sentiment around TRUMP is reasonable given that there will be unlocks of the token scheduled over the next two months. Token unlocks will increase the circulating supply, which will increase selling pressure.

The demand for the token, which has been close to its January levels over the past week, could also plunge after May 12, which is the last day for determining which holders qualify for the exclusive dinner.

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