The latest on-chain data suggests that the team behind the popular meme coin, which exploded in value in the past week or so, has begun to transfer large portions to centralized exchanges.

The community quickly picked up the move and most criticized it as a potential dump scheme.

TRUMP to Exchanges

The meme coin has raised numerous questions ever since its launch just before Donald Trumps inauguration in mid-January. The centralization, token unlock plan, as well as the massive price surge and subsequent painful crash, led to a lot of controversy and even reports about investigating the team behind it and the current POTUS.

The price decline was halted last week when news emerged that the top 220 holders will have a chance to attend a special dinner at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington, D.C., scheduled for May 22. Expectedly, crypto investors rushed to buy the token, pushing its price up by roughly 100% within hours and days.

Prominent names like Justin Sun were revealed to be among the leaders in terms of TRUMP holdings, which would grant them a special VIP reception and a private White House tour. However, there were also reports about whales cashing out on big profits due to quick and speculative trading after the dinner news came out. Some even shorted the asset on Hyperliquid, anticipating another price slump.

Now, though, Lookonchain reported that what many had feared might have started happening the team behind the coin disposing of large portions after the price climb.

A wallet linked to the $TRUMP team deposited 1,346,000 $TRUMP($19.58M) into #Binance, #OKX, and #Bybit 9 hours ago.https://t.co/Mkk5VIjIFW pic.twitter.com/G4cuIBrQVq

Although transfers to centralized exchanges dont necessarily guarantee a sell-off, its the most logical conclusion. Why would anyone make such transfers, knowing that everything is visible on the blockchain?

The community quickly raised important questions about the political influence of such tokens related to prominent figures and their impact on the market.

MELANIA Team Doing the Same?

Although the First Lady has not promised anything similar, the token named after her also experienced a modest price uptick in the past week, going from $0.375 to over $0.55 before correcting to the current $0.44.

In the meantime, Lookonchain noted that the team behind the MELANIA token had begun a DCA strategy for direct sales, which actually coincided with the price surge to a local top.

The #Melania team didn’t just add or remove liquidity to sell $MELANIA, they also employed a DCA strategy for direct sales!

2 days ago, they sold 1.18M $MELANIA for 4,230 $SOL($632K) using the DCA strategy.

Today, they are selling another 2.01M $MELANIA($938K) through the DCA… pic.twitter.com/FQBUghEogv