TRUMP Sniper buying $5M LIBRA

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The entity that just bought $5M worth of LIBRA tokens is uncovered to have sniped $1M in the official Trump memecoin, TRUMP, in the first block of its launch. The address, 6QSc2, bought 5.97M TRUMP tokens upon its launch, paying 357 SOL ($78K) as a tip to Jito to process the transaction.

The mention of Jito highlights the sophisticated "pay-to-play" mechanics on the Solana blockchain. Jito is a specialized client that allows users to bribe validators via "tips" to reorder transactions. By paying a high tip, a sniper ensures their purchase transaction is bundled into the very first block (Block 0) alongside the liquidity provision, guaranteeing the lowest possible entry price before the general public can buy.

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The TRUMP tokens were later sent to another address, 5CP6z, which distributed the tokens across various addresses, likely to mask their origin. One of these addresses, cGxeY, ended up buying up $5M worth of LIBRA tokens right as Argentine President, Javier Milei, tweeted his “How to buy LIBRA” tweet, before selling his LIBRA tokens for a $496K profit just 40 minutes later.

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Breaking funds into smaller chunks across unlabelled wallets is a technique often called "peeling" or "smurfing." This serves two purposes: it evades on-chain sleuths who use visualization tools like the Arkham Intel Platform to detect wallet clusters, and it prevents "copy-trading" bots from tracking the whale's main wallet. If the market knew a single entity controlled such a large portion of the supply, it would likely cause liquidity to dry up due to fear of a dump.

The entire LIBRA launch has been a huge smear on the crypto space as a whole, with several layers of insiders revealed to be involved, including the protocols supporting the token launch and several memecoin trading groups, with the allegations extending to Solana projects, Meteora and Jupiter, as well.