Meteora and Kelsier Labs Face Class Action Lawsuit for Manipulating M3M3 Token Issuance

According to PANews on April 22, Cointelegraph reported that a group of investors has filed a class-action lawsuit against the decentralized crypto exchange Meteora, accusing the company of manipulating the issuance and market price of the M3M3 token. According to an amended complaint submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 21, the plaintiffs allege that the venture capital firm Kelsier Labs, Meteora, and four current or former executives made "deliberate misrepresentations" during the M3M3 token issuance in December 2024. Investors claim that the defendants packaged the token issuance as a project led by "trusted leaders of the Solana ecosystem," rather than an "outright fraud," causing them to lose at least 69 million USD between December 2024 and February 2025. The complaint states that the defendants manipulated sales agents to inflate prices, creating the false impression that the token had intrinsic value, thereby deceiving ordinary investors into taking the tokens. The plaintiffs accuse the defendants of conspiring to design the M3M3 token issuance plan to profit illegally, harming the uninformed public interest. Meteora had previously participated in issuing several controversial tokens, such as TRUMP and MELANIA. In March of this year, Kelsier Ventures and other companies were sued in New York for allegedly "deceptive and manipulative" issuance of the LIBRA token, which was briefly promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei.