Insider trading claims over MAGA token sell-off debunked as MEV bot activity

An insider sold MAGA tokens worth over $1 million, sparking debate over market manipulation and revealing potential MEV bot activity.

According to Lookonchain, a blockchain analysis X account, “an insider” has been selling off the politically-themed memecoin known as MAGA — selling almost 80 billion tokens for 320 Ether worth $1.05 million.

The alleged insider purchased 140.4 billion MAGA tokens (33.37% of the total supply) with 22 wallets for just 5.35 Ether (ETH), which is worth almost $20,000. Of the 140.4 billion MAGA, the alleged insider still holds around 60 billion tokens worth over $9 million.

However, new information suggests that the transactions resulted from maximal extractable value (MEV) bot activity rather than “insider” trading. 

X user Dominium (@RootkitAlpha) pointed out that the transactions highlighted by Lookonchain display characteristics of MEV bot operations — exploiting arbitrage opportunities to generate significant MAGA profit margins.

Cointelegraph contacted Lookonchain and Dominium for comment but received no response by publication ti.

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Having received no response regarding MEV bot involvement, Dominium confronted Lookonchain by stating:

“So nothing to say now? Why making fud about transactions from a MEV BOT, that you even can see it and you call yourself lookonchain and you don’t get nothing about this bro? I’m waiting…”

To reinforce their statement, Dominium also replied with images that portrayed a more detailed breakdown of the transactions.

Due to the initial X post, Lookonchain received significant community backlash, with multiple users questioning the credibility of the blockchain analysis account. The narrative shift cast doubt on the initial insider allegations and led to debates surrounding market manipulation.

The memecoin MAGA is an acronym for Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and saw a recent rally in price after Trump gave pro-crypto comments. Asked whether people could donate to his campaign using cryptocurrencies, Trump responded, “I believe the answer is yes. If you can’t, I’ll make sure you can.”

Despite the recent hike in the popularity of memecoins, the high volatility and risks remain, as evidenced by the exploit suffered by the memecoin creation platform, pump.fun. The former employee, allegedly responsible for the $1.9 million exploit, claims to have been arrested and is now on bail in the U.K.