Meteora Co-Founder Faces New Legal Challenges Amid Token Fraud Allegations Linked to Celebrities
The co-founder of Meteora, Benjamin Chow, is under scrutiny for allegedly orchestrating scams involving various tokens while leveraging famous names to deceive investors.
Benjamin Chow, a prominent developer in the cryptocurrency space and co-founder of the decentralized exchange Meteora, faces serious allegations regarding a series of fraudulent token schemes. A revamped class-action lawsuit filed in a New York federal court on April 21, 2025, accuses Chow, Meteora, and Hayden Davis’s Kelsier Ventures of exploiting the names of well-known figures, including U.S. First Lady Melania Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei, to lend perceived legitimacy to scams aimed at unsuspecting investors.
Allegations of Scheme Mechanics
Initially, the lawsuit reported evidence of misleading practices by Chow and the Davis family, who allegedly profited by manipulating the value of a Solana-based token named M3M3, controlling up to 95% of its circulating supply through their influence.
The recently updated court documents claim fraud may extend across multiple tokens, notable among them being the MELANIA and LIBRA meme coins associated with Trump and Milei. Documentation suggests insider communications, revealing that Davis confessed to executing ‘at least fifteen token launches at Chow’s direction.’
Plaintiffs argue that Chow and associates used the celebrities’ names as a facade to make their operations appear authentic, directing their focus on Chow, Kelsier Ventures, and associated management while exonerating the public figures involved from wrongdoing.
The alleged fraud scheme appears organized, with Chow purportedly overseeing technical operations due to his coding expertise. This capacity enabled him to influence token supply and prices, facilitating risk-laden trading conditions for average investors.
For the promotional aspect, Hayden, Charles, and Gideon Davis at Kelsier Ventures allegedly employed paid endorsements and social media outreach to foster a false sense of demand for these meme coins, applying consistent tactics across all 15 tokens. They created an illusion of scarcity, followed by excessive paid promotions driving up token prices, only for the insiders to sell their holdings en masse, precipitating drastic value drops and investor losses.
Evidence and Legal Maneuvers
Further scrutiny surrounding the LIBRA token’s downfall in February 2025 reveals assertions by Meteora that they ceased their association with Kelsier, described by plaintiffs as a mere act. Chow and other Meteora leaders reportedly characterized themselves as ‘passive developers of autonomous software,’ distancing responsibility for price fluctuations.
In February, an insider left Meteora while maintaining his innocence. However, analysis from firms like Bubblemaps indicates a contrasting narrative, revealing significant profits exceeding $100 million linked to the operators of MELANIA and LIBRA.
