Uncovering Kelsier Ventures, a "Ding Crab Family" that harvested 200 million dollars

Author: Jaleel Jia Liu, BlockBeats
Since the Argentine president briefly endorsed the $LIBRA coin, there has been significant discussion about the interest group surrounding the entire Solana ecosystem MEME coins, with a venture capital firm named Kelsier Ventures emerging.

On the surface, this is a venture capital firm focused on investments and marketing in the Web3 space. In reality, it has been exposed as an insider team meticulously orchestrating memecoin projects. Not only $LIBRA, but Kelsier is also deeply involved with $MELANIA (the Trump lady coin). According to an investigation by The Big Whale, Kelsier Ventures is attempting to expand this model to Nigeria and has been in contact with members of the government there. According to an insider, "The project has reached a fairly mature stage." There are also indications that Kelsier Ventures is negotiating with other countries to replicate the same memecoin issuance model.

As the Kelsier Ventures scandal continues to unfold, more insider trading, fund transfers, and political entanglements are coming to light. What is the background of Kelsier Ventures? What connections do they have? Who are the key players?

The Davis Family Network Behind Kelsier Ventures

First, looking at official information, Kelsier Ventures' official website (Kelsier.io) describes itself as promoting Web3 innovation through marketing expertise, in-depth research, and targeted investments. They claim to provide support at all stages of a project, from concept development to market launch, offering tailored comprehensive support.

Clearly, after the scandal broke, their website has removed much of the original information, including introductions to team members. In previous screenshots provided by community members, we can see the following team members, who will be detailed later.

In various financing news reported by other overseas media, BlockBeats found only three financing details for this venture capital firm:

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

Earlier, in November 2023, Kelsier participated in the financing of Bitcoin non-custodial P2P order book service provider Saturn, led by Big Brain Holdings, with other investors including UTXO Management and BOOGLE Syndicate.

The most recent investment was on January 16, 2025, when Kelsier Ventures invested $30,000 in Solana's DeFi protocol Defituna, becoming its second smallest investor. Following the Kelsier Ventures scandal, Defituna has since refunded this investment amount.

Now, looking at the team members of Kelsier Ventures, it is clearly a family business. Hayden serves as CEO, his father Tom is the chairman, and his brother Gideon is the COO.

Davis Family Portrait

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

In the ninth episode of the brother podcast "Young Dumb & Woke," Hayden and his brother Gideon interviewed their father Tom, where they mentioned how happy they were to start a family business.

In their mother Emily Chynoweth Davis's blog, she also mentioned, "We created a family business in 2023, which allows our family to be tightly bound together like wolves," referring to the family business that should be Kelsier Ventures.

Next, let's detail these core members.

CEO: Hayden

First, there is Hayden Mark Davis, the most crucial member of Kelsier Ventures and one of the main promoters of the Argentine president Milei's LIBRA coin, who has recently become the focus of public attention due to recent self-exposures and interviews.

In a recent interview titled "YouTuber Interviews LIBRA Creator: I Am Also a Victim," Hayden admitted that the team had attempted to "snipe" and preempt funds, hoping to control market fluctuations. He insisted that the collapse of LIBRA was a "failed plan" rather than "cutting leeks," and the team did not profit directly from the MELANIA token.

Currently, Hayden still holds about $100 million in funds, and he stated that he is weighing how to handle this money, with options including refunds, reinvesting in the market, or donating to non-profit organizations in Argentina. However, he refused to immediately hand over the funds, believing that as a "custodian," he has leverage to negotiate with the Argentine government. He emphasized that the Milei team had not provided him with any specific instructions, so he must decide the final destination of the funds himself.

Although Hayden claims to be a "serial entrepreneur," he is relatively unknown on the internet, with only 35 contacts on his LinkedIn account.

According to his LinkedIn profile, he has been the CEO of Kelsier since October 2020 and has long resided in Los Angeles, California; since May of the same year, he has been the founder of Luxury Drip, a company of unclear industry (although there is a similarly named Italian brand in the urban fashion sector).

According to Davis, he began his entrepreneurial journey in August 2017, running a company called Leaders Elevate. This appears to be another family business of the Davis family, with his father as the main mentor, selling courses and private coaching on leadership topics.

Despite the remarkable difference in appearance in the photos, it does indeed seem to be the same person:

After Javier Milei uploaded a photo with Hayden Davis, many questions arose about this relatively unknown entrepreneur. Searching for the full name Hayden Mark Davis yields results mainly focused on news reports about the LIBRA collapse.

Hayden with Milei

The only other social media activity related to him is a photo from February 2022, where he appeared with two individuals named Thomas Davis and Gideon Davis, who are identified as co-founders and CEO of Kelsier Ventures, respectively. There is similarly little known about these two.

Currently, his private social media accounts have been set to private visibility.

Chairman Dad: Tom

In contrast, their father Tom Davis has a more dramatic life story and can be found more extensively on the internet.

In more of Tom's own writings, his childhood was not ordinary; his biological father was absent, and his stepfather was an alcoholic soldier, often living an abusive life. At 18, Tom experienced a severe suicide crisis. Later, Tom was targeted by the FBI for identity fraud, and when faced with charges, he chose to come clean, even voluntarily confessing to some crimes that the FBI had not yet uncovered. This complete honesty shocked the agents, and ultimately, he was sentenced to one year in federal prison instead of the expected 60 to 70 years of heavy sentencing.

After serving his sentence, Tom restarted his life. He became a youth pastor and actively engaged in charitable work. Tom Davis presents himself in multiple roles—he is an entrepreneur, speaker, author, humanitarian, and served as CEO of Children's HopeChest for 15 years, a charity focused on helping orphans and widows worldwide. However, he later stepped away from this role to create an online course called Leaders Elevate, aimed at cultivating leadership, personal growth, and development for CEOs.

In addition to his charitable work, he has authored 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." Additionally, he has published articles in 25 national publications and is currently writing a doctoral thesis on the impact of positive psychology on dynamic team structures.

In the aforementioned podcast episode of "Young Dumb & Woke," Hayden Davis and his brother Gideon Davis interviewed their father Tom Davis, where he shared how he entered the crypto industry:

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

During his time in Dubai, Tom stumbled upon an article about Dubai's plan to establish the world's third "Crypto Valley." Previously, similar crypto valleys had been established in Switzerland and Malaysia, aimed at attracting blockchain, digital asset, and crypto industry companies through tax incentives and innovative policies. The article inspired him to consider starting a blockchain company in Dubai, and he quickly put the idea into action.

Soon, Tom delved deeply into the crypto industry; he not only actively participated in relevant conferences but also successfully launched his own cryptocurrency project (Tom did not disclose the specific project name). At the same time, he began to connect with top figures in the field, building networks and getting involved in venture capital funds, investing in multiple early-stage projects. Today, these investments have not only made him part of the industry but also placed him in leadership roles in some projects.

Although Tom has also deleted much of his information related to Kelsier Ventures, we can still find some past clues. Initially, Tom referred to himself as the CEO of Kelsier Ventures.

More direct evidence comes from the last 10 minutes of this podcast, where Tom finally mentioned Kelsier Ventures: "What excites me even more is that this venture is not just mine; it's a family business."

This has always been his vision—to build an "empire" with his sons, much like the character Ding Xie. Now, this dream is gradually being realized. He and his family are involved in the crypto industry; although their fund has not yet reached the scale of the world's top hedge funds, they have already been able to participate in some significant projects in Dubai. Tom has now officially become a resident of Dubai.

COO Brother: Gideon

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

Although his public information is relatively scarce, clues from social media and past podcast records can outline the projects he has been involved in within the crypto industry. In 2022, Gideon was still a junior in college but had already begun to engage in the crypto industry, working on the DeFi project Unlock and its metaverse project NeoNexus.

NeoNexus NFT Series

NeoNexus is a metaverse project built on the Solana blockchain, planning to offer virtual real estate, characters, vehicles, and accessory NFTs, and has designed a governance token system. The project once claimed to have sold 4,000 sets of "virtual real estate" NFTs and planned to release another 6,000 sets of real estate NFTs, along with corresponding governance and utility tokens.

However, on March 21, 2022, NeoNexus founder Jack Shi suddenly announced the cessation of operations due to "insufficient funds" and laid off all employees, claiming he was willing to hand over the project to the community.

This "soft rug" incident sparked significant skepticism in the crypto community: it is estimated that NeoNexus raised approximately 25,000 SOL through NFTs since September 2021, which, based on the SOL price at that time, amounted to between approximately $3.425 million and $6.475 million. Yet the project suddenly claimed to have run out of funds in March 2022 and could not continue operations.

Rumors of Political Connections

At this point, while the Davis family has experience and resources in the crypto industry, being able to orchestrate coin issuance for the First Lady of the United States and the President of Argentina seems to require some additional "strength."

In further investigations by BlockBeats, we discovered two unverified rumors regarding political connections:

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

2. Another claim is that Hayden's mother, Tom's wife Emily Chynoweth Davis, is a close friend of Melania Trump. The Davis family, through Kelsier Ventures, has issued card NFTs and the $MELANIA coin for Melania.

Other Interest Chains

Kelsier Ventures is not acting alone; it is entangled in a deeper interest group. Some whistleblowers in the incident have revealed many truths to us.

Image Source: Chaofan Shou

According to information exposed by Chaofan Shou, M3M3 Launchpad is actually an important platform used by Kelsier Ventures to manipulate memecoins, becoming a breeding ground for a series of token launches. In the entire operational structure, the behind-the-scenes operator Kelsier Ventures is responsible for fund allocation, information leaks, and deciding when to launch projects, while its CEO Hayden Davis plays the role of developer and executor. Additionally, Axiom MM may act as a market maker or intermediary to ensure market liquidity is manipulated to create price fluctuations, while M3M3 Launchpad serves as a "front" platform, helping numerous memecoin projects such as ENRON, MELANIA, BOB, M3M3, AIAI, LIBRA, etc., with token issuance. Notably, KIP (a group associated with the Argentine president Milei's government) may provide political support, offering protection for the organization's operations in the Argentine market.

M3M3 Launchpad

M3M3 Launchpad is a memecoin launch platform that assisted in the token issuance during the incident. The founder of DefiTuna, Moty, and the Solana community exposed that M3M3 Launchpad pretended to be an independent platform, but in fact, it was entirely controlled by Meteora co-founder Ben and used by Kelsier Ventures as a tool to manipulate memecoin prices.

Thus, it is not surprising that on December 5, 2024, a blog from Meteora suddenly introduced the M3M3 Launchpad project.

The first token launched by M3M3 was $M3M3. Its trend closely mirrored that of $MELANIA and $LIBRA.

"Do not buy $M3M3! It is completely controlled by insider snipers!" Before the interest group was exposed, some community members had already raised warnings.

In addition, the founder of DefiTuna, Moty, revealed that over $200 million in funds were siphoned off by insiders across multiple memecoin projects, including several tokens launched on M3M3 Launchpad: $AIAI, $MATES, $ENRON, etc. The $AIAI and $MATES projects are particularly concerning, as their prices plummeted by 95% shortly after launch, leaving community investors with significant losses. Meanwhile, $M3M3, as one of the first projects on the memecoin issuance platform, also experienced a 95% drop.

Including these multiple project tokens, Kelsier Ventures and its manipulation team earned over $200 million in profits, as revealed by DefiTuna's founder Moty.

DefiTuna was initially a DeFi platform, and on January 16, 2025, Kelsier Ventures invested $30,000 in it, hoping DefiTuna could provide liquidity for M3M3 through employee Thomas.

Among the Kelsier Ventures team members mentioned earlier, Thomas is also included and ranks just after Hayden, Tom, and Gideon, indicating his importance and level of involvement.

Under pressure from Kelsier, projects on M3M3 allocated token supplies to DefiTuna, with DefiTuna co-founder Vlad passively participating without realizing the issues. Kelsier further demanded that DefiTuna manage the liquidity on M3M3, including the MATES project, which saw its price drop by 95% after launch.

However, as DefiTuna discovered more and more suspicious aspects during its operations, they realized that M3M3 was not a true "decentralized launch platform" but rather a tool for Kelsier to manipulate the market. The most controversial events occurred during the MELANIA token issuance:

1. Kelsier leaked insider information
   Before the MELANIA token issuance, Kelsier informed DefiTuna that Melania's official X account would post related tweets, and Trump would retweet them to help hype the coin price.

2. Secretly transferring 1% of the tokens
   Kelsier sent DefiTuna 1% of the MELANIA token supply (valued at $100 million at its peak), requesting it for "liquidity management."

3. Hayden Davis instructed Vlad to conduct anonymous sales
   Hayden Davis further requested Vlad to anonymously sell these tokens to avoid on-chain tracking. However, after discussing with DefiTuna founder Moty, Vlad ultimately decided to return all the funds.

Currently, DefiTuna has completely severed all cooperative relationships with Kelsier Ventures, refunded Kelsier's $30,000 investment, and publicly accused Kelsier of manipulating the market through the M3M3 launchpad and siphoning off huge amounts of funds.

Fund Flow: Connections of Axiom MM and Cube Exchange

In the insider trading network of Kelsier Ventures, the flow of funds is particularly crucial, with Axiom MM and Cube Exchange playing roles in market manipulation, fund laundering, and channel delivery. Although these projects do not appear to have direct affiliations with Kelsier, on-chain data and community revelations reveal their intricate connections of interests.

Axiom MM is a market maker in the Solana ecosystem. In the accusations from DefiTuna's founder Moty and community revelations, Kelsier Ventures may have utilized Axiom MM for insider trading and market manipulation: during the issuance of $LIBRA, $MELANIA, $M3M3, $AIAI, and $MATES, Axiom MM may have been responsible for creating false trading volumes, causing the coin prices to spike in a short time to attract retail FOMO; when the behind-the-scenes team decided to cash out, Axiom MM might adjust trading strategies to quickly drain market liquidity, accelerating the price collapse.

On-chain data shows that several wallets associated with Axiom MM conducted a series of "abnormal trades" before and after the issuance of $LIBRA: minutes before the token launch, large amounts of $LIBRA were bought, pushing the initial price up; during the market FOMO peak, large amounts were sold for profit; just before the token collapse, liquidity provision was halted, causing the market depth to vanish instantly.

These actions align closely with typical market manipulation strategies, leading the community to question whether Axiom MM has a relationship of interest with Kelsier Ventures.

Cube Exchange is also implicated; community investigations have revealed that Cube Exchange is a client of Kelsier. Kelsier provides consulting, marketing, and KOL resources for it; Hayden Davis (Kelsier CEO) was an early investor in Cube Exchange; multiple Kelsier-associated wallets have conducted large transactions on Cube Exchange.

"Most of the people in the photos have worked at Cube Exchange or have connections to it. Cube Exchange is a client of Kelsier, responsible for consulting, marketing, KOLs, etc. But I'm not sure if they have directly participated in any misconduct," a community member revealed.

Additionally, BOOGLE, a ghost-themed NFT project built on Solana with a total of only 100 pieces, is also implicated.

However, the three members involved in the incident all own BOOGLE and use it as their Twitter avatars. Coupled with the earlier mention that Kelsier participated in the financing of Bitcoin non-custodial P2P order book service provider Saturn, community members began to question whether BOOGLE provided cover for insider trading or if there were any interests linking them.

Currently, BOOGLE has denied these allegations: "Our conspiracy group does not participate in Kelsier or $LIBRA." However, they acknowledged that three Kelsier-related members were once NFT holders and stated that they have been removed.

Deep Collusion of Meteora & Jupiter

In the accusations from DefiTuna's founder, Meteora and Jupiter are considered deeper interest groups outside of Kelsier Ventures, deeply colluding. The following content is based on revelations from DefiTuna's founder Moty and reasoning from other community members:

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

Ben Chow himself is deeply involved in Kelsier's M3M3 Launchpad; although it is publicly claimed that the platform is "independent," the actual control has always been in the hands of Meteora and its founding team.

In the $LIBRA, $MELANIA, and other memecoin projects, Meteora provided key liquidity management, technical support, and assisted Kelsier in market manipulation. For instance, during multiple memecoin issuance processes on M3M3 Launchpad, Meteora was responsible for ensuring that most tokens flowed into the hands of insider traders, while retail investors became the targets of harvesting.

It is reported that Meteora was founded by Ben Chow and was later acquired by Jupiter. Public information shows that Ben Chow is also a co-founder of Jupiter, and the two are co-founders of each other.

KOL @Ed_x0101 also posted on X (Twitter) stating that he has cleared his holdings of $JUP, citing that many memecoin projects that harvest retail investors have direct or indirect connections to Jupiter; Jupiter may be involved in insider trading and market manipulation, and even face legal risks; after the collapse of $LIBRA, insiders were compensated while ordinary retail investors lost everything.

More importantly, many community members pointed out that Kelsier may just be a "front," with the real behind-the-scenes operators being the Jupiter team and liquidity management institutions.

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

However, this move was interpreted by the public as an attempt to distance Meteora from the Kelsier incident, trying to protect Meteora from regulatory and legal risks affecting the Jupiter ecosystem.

On Jupiter's side, they have also hired one of the independent third-party law firms, Fenwick & West, to investigate and issue a report regarding insider trading issues.

However, some community members do not trust this law firm, as it is the general legal counsel for FTX and has been sued for allegedly assisting FTX in fraud. A joint revelation from 2022 mentioned it as "Sun Yuchen's favorite law firm," which previously handled the restructuring of Poloniex.

Whether it is Kelsier's manipulation methods in memecoin issuance or its deep collusion with political figures, market makers, and trading platforms, it indicates that this is not just a financial scam in the crypto market but may involve broader interests.

In this storm, the credibility of the Solana ecosystem has also faced unprecedented scrutiny. On one hand, Solana has rapidly risen as one of the most popular blockchains since 2024 due to the boom in memecoin trading. On the other hand, whether this prosperity, supported by memecoin trading, is sustainable in the long term has become a focal point of market discussions.

With a series of "air coin" projects collapsing, is Solana falling into a trap driven by FOMO funds and lacking real application support? If market confidence collapses completely, can SOL replicate the miraculous comeback of 2023-2024, escape the crisis again, and achieve market self-repair? BlockBeats will continue to monitor this situation.