Ben (v2) priceBEN

Ben Chow, co-founder of DeFi and meme coin platform Meteora, resigned on Monday after being accused of financial misconduct and insider trading tied to the controversial LIBRA meme coin. This development came after growing concerns over his involvement in the project. Chow Denies Involvement in Controversy Meow, the pseudonymous co-founder of Jupiter, a decentralized exchange on Solana, as well as Meteora, announced Chow’s resignation on X. He expressed confidence in his partner’s character but cited his recent lack of judgment regarding their company’s core operations as the reason for his departure. “While I am 100% confident about Ben’s character, as a project lead he has also shown a lack of judgement and care about some of the core aspects of the project,” Meow wrote. “And this is unfortunately unacceptable. Ben understands this, and has chosen to resign,” he added. Meow also revealed plans to find new leadership for Meteora and to hire an independent firm, Fenwick & West, to conduct an investigation and issue a report regarding the situation. The LIBRA meme coin gained attention after Argentine President Javier Milei promoted it, causing its value to surge above $4. However, the price later dropped dramatically to under $0.5 after Milei deleted his post. Its decline caused rumors of a rug pull, with accusations of market manipulation emerging. Reports claimed that insiders had cashed out over $100 million while regular buyers suffered substantial losses. In a separate statement on X, Chow denied any personal involvement in the LIBRA project. He clarified that neither he nor the Meteora team had received any insider knowledge or tokens related to it. “Neither I nor the Meteora team compromised the LIBRA launch by leaking information, nor did we purchase, receive, or manage any tokens,” he said. Alleged Video Evidence Amidst the rumors, a video surfaced online featuring an alleged conversation between Chow and Dhirk, the founder of DefiTuna. In the video, Dhirk claims to have witnessed Hayden Davis, a key figure in the whole LIBRA debacle, and members of his company, Kelsier Ventures, engaging in insider trading during a trip to Barcelona. The Meteora co-founder is seen denying any involvement in misconduct, expressing surprise and concern. At one point, he also says he regrets recommending Davis to other meme initiatives like MELANIA. “I feel so sick because I gave him Melania,” Chow said. “I f****d up because I enabled the guy that should not have been enabled … I’m going to have to step down, I’m going to have to quit,” declared the distraught executive. The post Meteora Exec Resigns Amid Financial Misconduct Claims appeared first on CryptoPotato.

DefiTuna co-founder Moty Povolotski has alleged that Kelsier Ventures, Meteora, and M3M3 coordinated a series of meme coin launches on Solana to extract $200 million in profits at the expense of unsuspecting investors. In a series of tweets on Feb. 17, Moty revealed that Kelsier Ventures had invested $30,000 in DefiTuna last month, but upon discovering Kelsier’s activities, DefiTuna refunded the investment and severed all ties. Kelsier Ventures, led by CEO Hayden Davis, is a key entity in the Libra token launch. In a recent interview with Coffeezilla, Hayden admitted that the team sniped during the Libra token launch. “I have personally gone the extra mile by risking myself and everything we built over at DefiTuna to try and get key players to speak up and start naming the bad actors and weeding them out,” the DefiTuna founder stated. The founder disclosed the existence of “a massive spiderweb of influencers who are banking millions from the Meteora community enabled by the leadership team of Ben.” According to Moty, Ben, or Ben Chow, planned to resign after the Libra scandal. A video obtained by SolanaFloor and later quoted by Moty shows that he told Ben about Hayden’s alleged meme coin misconduct. Ben appeared to be surprised by the news, denied any involvement by himself or Meteora, and said he regretted connecting Hayden with other projects. Following Moty’s tweets and the footage, Meow, the pseudonymous co-founder of Jupiter DEX, announced that Ben resigned from his role at Meteora. Meow strongly denied any involvement of Jupiter or Meteora in insider trading, financial wrongdoing, or inappropriate token distribution. According to the evidence shared with SolanaFloor, Kelsier approached DefiTuna through a Lebanon-based employee to provide liquidity for M3M3, a platform allegedly owned by Chow. Projects launching on M3M3 were allegedly required to allocate a portion of the token supply to Kelsier’s group, as detailed by Moty. Screenshots indicate that $2.4 million was extracted from community members through the MATES and AIAI token launches, with both tokens dropping 95% since launch. In the Melania meme token case, Kelsier provided DefiTuna with 1% of the total supply, worth $100 million at peak, requesting an anonymous sale through Orca LP tokens as NFTs to avoid on-chain tracking. Hayden, however, told Coffeezilla that his team did not profit from the Melania token launch. When questioned about Kelsier’s total profits from M3M3, Moty stated: “Like if you take into account AIAI + MATES + ENRON + Bunch of other projects … + Melania + LIBRA…over 200M? And there are plenty more projects.”

🚨 BREAKING: SolanaFloor drops exclusive video evidence exposing a $200M+ memecoin extraction scheme linked to @KelsierVentures, @MeteoraAG, and @WEAREM3M3_. The footage features DeFi Tuna Founder @CavemanDhirk and Ben Chow, adding weight to allegations of coordinated market manipulation. 👀🔥 This could shake things up. Thoughts? 🤯 #Solana #CryptoNews #Memecoins

Meteora co-founder Ben Chow resigns amid Libra scandal

🚨 #M3M3 Scandal Unfolds! 🚨 DefiTuna founder Moty exposes Kelsier’s involvement in a scheme to drain funds from $M3M3! 💰⚠️ 🔹 Meteora leaders, including Ben, onboarded top KOLs. 🔹 Hayden allegedly leaked token addresses before launch. 🔹 KOLs bought in early & cashed out…