Exposing Kelsier Ventures, a "Ding Crab Family" that harvests $200 million

Author: Jaleel Gallior, BlockBeats

Since the Argentine president briefly stepped up the $LIBRA coin, interest groups on the entire solana ecosystem MEME coin have been under tremendous discussion, and a venture capital institution called Kelsier Ventures has surfaced.

On the surface, this is a venture capital institution focusing on investment and marketing in the Web3 field. In fact, it was revealed that it is an insider trading team carefully planned the memecoin project. It is not just $LIBRA, but Kelsier also deeply participated in $MELANIA. (Mrs. Trump coins). According to the investigation by The Big Whale, Kelsier Ventures also tried to expand this model to Nigeria and contacted the country's government members. According to a person familiar with the matter, "The project has reached a very mature stage." There are signs of It shows that Kelsier Ventures is also in talks with other countries to plan to replicate the same memecoin issuance model.

As the Kelsier Ventures scandal continues to ferment, more and more insider trading, capital transfer and political involvement surfaces. What is the origin of this Kelsier Ventures? What is the background? Who are the people standing by?

Behind Kelsier Ventures, the Davis family’s relationship network

Let’s first look at the official information. Kelsier Ventures’ official website (Kelsier.io) introduces itself to promote Web3 innovation through marketing expertise, in-depth research and targeted investment. They claim to provide support at all stages of the project, from concept concept to market launch, with a full range of tailored support.

Obviously, after the scandal, its official website has deleted more information that was originally included, including introductions from team members. In the previous screenshots provided by community members, we can see that the following team members are introduced in detail later.

Among the various financing news reported by other overseas media, BlockBeats found only three financing information for this venture capital:

In May 2024, Kelsier organized a round of funding, raising $3.5 million to support E Money Network, a company focused on asset tokenization and virtual wallet development.

Earlier in November 2023, Kelsier also participated in the financing of Saturn, a non-custodial P2P order book service provider, led by Big Brain Holdings, and other financing parties include UTXO Management and BOOGLE Syndicate.

The latest investment was on January 16, 2025 when Kelsier Ventures invested $30,000 in Solana’s DeFi protocol Defituna, which has now returned the investment after the Kelsier Ventures scandal. Amount.

Now let’s look at the team members of Kelsier Ventures, a family business. Hayden serves as CEO, his father Tom serves as chairman, and his younger brother Gideon serves as COO.

Davis Family Family Photo

According to Rhythm BlockBeats, the Davis family seems to have always had a deep obsession with creating a family business.

In the 9th issue of Hayden and his brother Gideon’s brother’s podcast Young Dumb & Woke, the two brothers interviewed their father Tom, which mentioned that they were very happy to start a family business.

And in the blog of their mother Emily Chynoweth Davis, it is also mentioned that "we created a family business in 2023, which can make our family tightly tie our family like a wolf." The family mentioned here is mentioned The company should be Kelsier Ventures.

Next, let’s introduce these core members in detail.

CEO: Hayden

First, Hayden Mark Davis, the most critical member of Kelsier Ventures and one of the main promoters of Argentina President Milecoin LIBRA, has become the focus of public attention in recent self-destruction and interviews.

In a recent interview with YouTuber Interview with LIBRA Creator: I Am a Victim", Hayden admitted that the team had tried to "snipe" to rush funds, hoping to control market volatility. He insisted that the LIBRA collapse was a "plan failure" rather than a "cutting leek", and that the team did not directly profit from the MELANIA tokens.

Currently, Hayden still holds about $100 million in funding, and he said he is weighing how to deal with it, options include refunds, reinjection of funds into the market, or donating them to nonprofits in Argentina. However, he refused to hand over the funds immediately, believing that he, as the "custodian", has leverage to negotiate the Argentine government. He stressed that the Milei team did not provide him with any specific instructions and he must decide at his own discretion of where the funds will go.

Although Hayden calls himself a "serial entrepreneur", he is unknown on the Internet and has only 35 contacts on the LinkedIn account.

According to its LinkedIn data, he has been the CEO of Kelsier since October 2020 and has lived in Los Angeles, California, USA for a long time; since May of the same year, he has become the founder of Luxury Drip, an unknown industry Company (although there is an Italian brand of the same name, which belongs to the urban fashion field).

According to Davis, he has started a business since August 2017 and runs a company called Leaders Elevate. This looks like another family business in the Davis family, with its father as its main mentor, selling courses and private tutoring on leadership topics.

Although the difference in fat and thinness in the photo is amazing, it does look like the same person:

After Javier Milei uploaded a photo with Hayden Davis, many questions arose about the almost unknown entrepreneur. Searching for the full name Hayden Mark Davis mainly focuses on the news reports about the LIBRA crash.

Hayden and Milei photo

The only other social dynamics that can be related to him is a February 2022 photo in which he appears with two people named Thomas Davis and Gideon Davis, who are co-founders and CEOs of Kelsier Ventures. The identity appears. Very little is known about these two people.

Currently, his private social media accounts have been set to be privately visible.

Chairman Dad: Tom

By contrast, their father, Tom Davis, has a more dramatic life and can find more traces on the internet.

In more Tom's own writings, his childhood was not ordinary, his biological father was absent, and his stepfather was an alcoholic soldier who was often abused. At the age of 18, Tom experienced a serious suicide crisis. Later, Tom was targeted by the FBI for forging his identity. Faced with the accusation, Tom chose to tell him all and even took the initiative to confess some criminal facts that the FBI had not yet grasped. This thorough candid shocked the agent, and eventually, he was sentenced to one year in federal prison instead of the expected heavy sentence of 60 to 70 years.

After serving his sentence, Tom started his life again. He became a young pastor and actively engaged in philanthropy. Tom Davis is presented in multiple identities – he is an entrepreneur, speaker, writer, humanitarian and has served as CEO at Children's HopeChest for 15 years. This is a charity focused on helping orphans and widows around the world. However, he later stopped the work and instead founded an online course, Leaders Elevate, to develop the CEO's leadership, personal growth and development.

In addition to charity, he has written five published books, including Fields of the Fatherless, Red Letters, Confessions of a Good Christian Guy, and two novels, Scared: A Novel on the Edge of the World 》 and "Priceless". In addition, he has published articles in 25 national publications and is writing a doctoral thesis to study the impact of positive psychology on dynamic team structures.

In the 9th issue of the brother podcast "Young Dumb & Woke" by Hayden Davis and his younger brother Gideon Davis, the two brothers interviewed their father, Tom Davis, about how they entered the crypto industry:

As one of three partners in a restaurant chain on the East Coast, his chain brand operates 34 restaurants on the East Coast. In order to seek a broader market, he decided to expand his business to the Middle East and registered a company in Dubai.

During this time in Dubai, Tom accidentally read an article about Dubai's plan to build the world's third "Crypto Valley". Previously, similar crypto valleys have been established in Switzerland and Malaysia to attract companies in the blockchain, digital assets and crypto industries through tax incentives and innovative policies. The article inspired him, and brought him the idea of ​​starting a blockchain company in Dubai and quickly became the first to enter.

Soon, Tom went deep into the crypto industry. He not only actively participated in relevant meetings, but also successfully launched his own cryptocurrency project (Tom did not name the specific project). Meanwhile, he began to reach out to top figures in the field, build connections, and get involved in venture capital funds, investing in multiple early stage projects. These investments today not only make him part of the industry, but also make him a place in the leadership of some projects.

Although Tom also deleted a lot of information about himself and Kelsier Ventures, we can still find some clues from the past. Initially, Tom also called himself the CEO of Kelsier Ventures.

And the more direct evidence is that in the last 10 minutes of this podcast, Tom finally mentioned Kelsier Ventures: "What makes me even more excited is that this career is not just me, but a family business."

This is his always-off vision to build an "empire" with his sons, just like Ding Cai. Now, this dream is gradually realizing. He has been involved in the crypto industry with his family, and although their funds have not yet reached the size of the world's top hedge funds, they have been able to participate in some of the important projects in Dubai. Today, Tom has officially become a Dubai resident.

COO Brother: Gideon

Next is Hayden’s younger brother, Gideon Davis. In the family-owned Kelsier Ventures, Gideon Davis serves as Chief Operating Officer (COO), responsible for the company’s daily operations and investment management.

Although he has relatively little public information, the projects he has been involved in in the crypto industry can be outlined through clues on social media and past podcast records. In 2022, Gideon is still in his junior year, but he has begun to get involved in the crypto industry, working in DeFi project Unlock and its metaverse project NeoNexus.

NeoNexus NFT Series

NeoNexus is a meta-universe project built on the Solana blockchain, which plans to provide virtual real estate, roles, vehicles and accessories NFTs, and design a governance token system. The project once claimed that it had sold 4,000 sets of "virtual real estate" NFTs, and planned to release another 6,000 sets of real estate NFTs in the future, and launch corresponding governance and practical tokens.

However, on March 21, 2022, NeoNexus founder Jack Shi suddenly announced that he had ceased operations due to "underfunded funds" and fired all employees, claiming to be willing to hand over the project to the community.

This "soft rug" incident caused great doubts in the crypto community at that time: It is estimated that NeoNexus has raised about 25,000 SOLs through NFT since September 2021. Based on the SOL price at that time, the amount of funds raised was approximately US$3.425 million. to between $6.475 million. However, in March 2022, the project suddenly claimed that it had run out of funds and failed to continue operating.

Rumors about the Political Relations Network

Seeing this, although the Davis family has experience and resources in the crypto industry, it seems that they still lack some "strength" to be able to issue coins for the first lady of the US president and the Argentine president.

In a further in-depth investigation by BlockBeats, we found two unconfirmed political relations rumors:

1. Hayden's uncle, Tom's younger brother Glen, is Trump's close friend. Due to this relationship, the Davis family has established connections with Trump.

2. Another saying is that Hayden's mother, Tom's wife Emily Chynoweth Davis, is the best friend of US President Trump's wife Melania. The Davis family is based on Kelsier Ventures and has successively issued cards NFT and $MELANIA coins for Melania.

Other chains of interest

Kelsier Ventures is not acting alone, it involves a deeper interest group. Some whistleblowers in the incident revealed a lot of truth to us.

Source Chaofan Shou

According to Chaofan Shou information, M3M3 Launchpad is actually an important platform used by Kelsier Ventures to manipulate memecoin, and it has become a hotbed for a series of token launches. In the entire operating structure, behind-the-scenes trader Kelsier Ventures is responsible for fund scheduling, information leakage, and decisions about when to start the project, while its CEO Hayden Davis plays the role of developers and executors. In addition, Axiom MM may act as a market maker or intermediary in it to ensure market liquidity is manipulated to create price fluctuations, while M3M3 Launchpad serves as a "white glove" platform to help a large number of memecoin projects such as ENRON, MELANIA, BOB, M3M3 , AIAI, LIBRA, etc. to issue tokens. More notably, KIP (a group associated with the government of Argentine President Mile) may provide political support in it, providing asylum for the operation of the organization in the Argentine market.

M3M3 Launchpad

M3M3 Launchpad is a memecoin startup platform that helps issue coins in events. In the founder of DefiTuna, Moty and Solana community, M3M3 Launchpad pretends to be an independent platform, but in fact, it is completely controlled by Meteora co-founder Ben and used by Kelsier Ventures as a tool to manipulate the price of memecoin.

Therefore, this is not difficult to understand. On December 5, 2024, a blog by Meteora suddenly introduced the project M3M3 Launchpad.

The first token launched by M3M3 Launchpad is $M3M3. In terms of trends, it is almost a replica of $MELANIA and $LIBARA.

"Don't buy $M3M3! It's completely controlled by internal snipers!" Before the interest group was revealed, community members made a reminder.

In addition, DefiTuna founder Moty revealed that in multiple memecoin projects, more than $200 million of funds were withdrawn by insiders, including several tokens launched on M3M3 Launchpad: $AIAI, $MATES , $ENRON, etc. The $AIAI and $MATES projects are particularly eye-catching, with prices plummeting 95% in a short period of time after they went online, resulting in a loss of money from community investors. $M3M3, the first batch of projects of the memecoin issuing platform, also plummeted by 95%.

Including these multiple project tokens, Kelsier Ventures and his manipulation team earned over $200 million in revenue. Moty, the founder of DefiTuna, broke the news.

DefiTuna started as a DeFi platform, and on January 16, 2025, Kelsier Ventures invested $30,000 in it and was connected by employee Thomas, hoping that DefiTuna will provide liquidity for the M3M3.

Thomas is also among the members of the Kelsier Ventures team mentioned in the aforementioned article, and is only listed behind the three family members, Hayden, Tom and Gideon, which shows that its importance and degree of participation are profound.

Under pressure from Kelsier, the project on M3M3 allocated token supply to DefiTuna, and DefiTuna co-founder Vlad was passively involved without realizing the problem. Kelsier further asked DefiTuna to manage liquidity on the M3M3, including the MATES project, which plummeted 95% after its listing.

However, as DefiTuna discovered more and more suspicious things during its operation, they realized that the M3M3 was not a real "decentralized startup platform", but a tool Kelsier used to manipulate the market. The most controversial incident occurred during the issuance of MELANIA tokens:

1. Kelsier reveals insider information. Before the release of MELANIA tokens, Kelsier informed DefiTuna that Melania's official X account would post related tweets, and Trump would forward it to help hype the price of the coin.

2. Secretly transfer 1% tokens
Kelsier sent DefiTuna 1% of MELANIA's token supply (worth $100 million at peak) for "liquidity management."

3. Hayden Davis instructs Vlad to sell anonymously
Hayden Davis further asked Vlad to sell the tokens anonymously to circumvent on-chain tracking. However, Vlad finally decided to return the entire fund after discussing with DefiTuna founder Moty.

At present, DefiTuna completely cut off all partnerships with Kelsier Ventures, refunded Kelsier's $30,000 investment, and publicly accused Kelsier of manipulating the market through the M3M3 launch pad and withdrawing huge funds.

Capital flow: Axiom MM, Cube Exchange connection

In Kelsier Ventures' insider trading network, the way funds flow is particularly critical, while Axiom MM and Cube Exchange play the role of market manipulation, capital cleaning and channel delivery respectively. Although these projects have no direct affiliation with Kelsier on the surface, on-chain data and community revelations reveal the intricate links between them.

Axiom MM is a market maker in the Solana ecosystem. Amid the allegations and community revelations of DefiTuna founder Moty, Kelsier Ventures may use Axiom MM to conduct insider trading and market manipulation: in $LIBRA, $MELANIA, $ During the issuance of M3M3, $AIAI, and $MATES, Axiom MM may be responsible for creating false trading volumes, causing the currency price to explode in a short period of time, attracting retail investors to enter the market; when the behind-the-scenes trading team decides to cash out, Axiom MM may adjust. Trading strategies make the market lose liquidity quickly, thereby accelerating price collapse.

On-chain data shows that several Axiom MM's related wallets conducted a series of "abnormal transactions" before and after the issuance of $LIBRA: a large number of $LIBRA was bought in a few minutes before the token was launched, driving the initial price to rise; during the peak period of market FOMO , sell a lot of money to make profits; on the eve of the token collapse, liquidity is stopped, causing the market depth to disappear instantly.

These behaviors are highly consistent with typical market manipulation strategies, leading the community to question whether Axiom MM has a transfer of interests with Kelsier Ventures.

Cube Exchange is also inseparable from it. During the community's mining, it was found that Cube Exchange is Kelsier's customer. Kelsier provides consulting, marketing, and KOL resources for it; Hayden Davis (Kelsier CEO) was an early investor in Cube Exchange; and multiple Kelsier-related wallets have conducted large-scale transactions on Cube Exchange.

"Most of the people in the photo have worked or been in contact with Cube Exchange. Cube Exchange is a client of Kelsier, responsible for consulting, marketing, KOLs, etc. But I'm not sure if they are directly involved in misconduct." A community member revealed that .

In addition, the involvement was BOOGLE, a ghost-themed NFT project built on Solana, with a total of only 100.

But all three members of the incident have BOOGLE and serve as a Twitter profile picture. As mentioned earlier, Kelsier and BOOGLE participated in financing Saturn, a non-custodial P2P order book service provider of Bitcoin. Therefore, with the exposure of the Kelsier incident, community members began to question whether BOOGLE provided cover for insider trading. Or there is also a link between them.

But it has been denied by BOOGLE: "Our cabal does not participate in Kelsier or $LIBRA." But it acknowledged that three Kelsier-related members were once its NFT holders and said they have been removed.

Meteora & Jupiter's In-depth Collusion

In the allegations of the founder of DefiTuna, Meteora and Jupiter are considered deeper interest groups outside of Kelsier Ventures. They have colluded deeply. The following is the reasoning of DefiTuna founder Moty’s revelation with other community members:

In a series of memecoin manipulation incidents, Meteora is not an innocent third party, but a key partner of Kelsier.

Ben Chow himself is deeply involved in Kelsier's M3M3 Launchpad. Although he claims that the platform is "independent", the actual control is always in the hands of Meteora and its founding team.

In $LIBRA, $MELANIA and other memecoin projects, Meteora provides key liquidity management, technical support, and helps Kelsier market manipulation. For example, during the multiple memecoin issuance of M3M3 Launchpad, Meteora is responsible for ensuring that most of the tokens flow into insider traders, while retail investors become the target of harvest.

It is reported that Meteora was founded by Ben Chow and was later acquired by Jupiter. It is shown in public information that Ben Chow is also Jupiter's joint creation. The two of them work together to create each other.

KOL @Ed_x0101 also posted on X (Twitter) that he has cleared $JUP, the reason is that many memecoin projects that harvest retail investors have direct or indirect relationship with Jupiter; Jupiter may involve insider trading and market manipulation, and there is even legal Risk; After the $LIBRA collapse, insider traders are compensated, while ordinary retail investors lose all their money.

More importantly, many community members pointed out that Kelsier may just be "white gloves", and the real behind-the-scenes traders are the Jupiter team and liquidity management agency.

As the scandal broke out, Ben Chow announced his resignation from Meteora on February 17, 2025 and clarified that Meteora and himself never held, received or managed any $LIBRA tokens; in the memecoin project, Meteora only provides IT technical support , did not participate in off-chain transactions of tokens; there is no "special relationship" with Kelsier, and there is only cooperation during the M3M3 period.

However, this move was interpreted by the outside world as being a way to clear the relationship with the Kelsier incident and trying to preserve Meteora to prevent regulatory and legal risks from affecting the Jupiter ecosystem.

Jupiter also hired Fenwick & West, one of the independent third-party law firms, to investigate and issue a report in response to insider trading issues.

However, some community members do not trust the firm because it is FTX's general counsel and was prosecuted for suspected assistance to FTX fraud. A joint leak in 2022 mentioned that it was "Yuchen Sun's favorite law firm" and had previously been in charge of the reorganization of Poloniex.

Whether it is Kelsier's manipulation in the issuance of memecoin or his in-depth collusion with politicians, market makers, and trading platforms, it shows that this is not just a financial scam in crypto markets, but more likely to involve a wider range of interests.

During this storm, the credibility of Solana's ecosystem has also been questioned unprecedentedly. On the one hand, Solana, one of the most popular blockchains since 2024, has risen rapidly due to the boom of memecoin transactions. But on the other hand, whether this prosperity supported by memecoin transactions is long-term sustainable has become the focus of market discussion.

With the collapse of a series of "air coin" projects, is Solana falling into the trap of being driven by FOMO funds and lacking practical application support? If the market's confidence completely collapses, can SOL perform a counterattack miracle similar to that of 2023-2024, get rid of the crisis again, and realize the market's self-healing? BlockBeats will continue to pay attention.