Opinion: Meme Coins have devolved into a tool for retail investor exploitation, straying from their original decentralized purpose

BlockBeats News, March 16th, according to Cointelegraph's report, Hayden Davis, who was previously involved in an insider trading scandal for issuing the LIBRA and MELANIA meme coins, is facing another heavy blow. His latest Solana-based meme coin, WOLF, plummeted by 99% just two days after its launch. On-chain data revealed that over 80% of the tokens are controlled by the internal team, and the trading patterns mirror those of previous projects. 82% of the total WOLF token supply is concentrated in the hands of the same entity, with funds flowing back to the "OxcEAe" address controlled by Davis, which had transferred funds across 17 wallets months before the token's launch. On March 8th, WOLF's market capitalization briefly reached $42 million but then crashed to $570,000, causing a market cap loss of over $400 million.

This collapse is just the tip of the iceberg in Davis's trading history. Previously, his issuance of LIBRA saw $107 million in liquidity cashed out by 8 insider wallets, causing the instant collapse of the $4 billion market cap, involving Argentine President Milae facing impeachment crisis. Argentine lawyer Gregorio Dalbon has applied to Interpol for a red notice against Davis, accusing him of being a "flight risk."

Anastasija Plotnikova, Co-founder of Fideum, candidly stated, "meme coins have deviated from their decentralized origins, becoming tools for extracting value from retail investors. Insider groups, pump and dump schemes, and sniper teams have replaced the community attributes of early meme coins, forming a distorted ecosystem. Investors need to distinguish meme coins with collectible value from 'rug pull' scams, the latter of which has clearly constituted a crime. Faced with chaos, U.S. regulatory agencies are taking action. On March 6th, a New York State Assembly member submitted a bill to establish a specific criminal offense for 'virtual token fraud.'