PANews reported on April 22 that according to Cointelegraph, a group of investors have filed a class action lawsuit against the decentralized crypto exchange Meteora, accusing the company of manipulating the issuance and market price of M3M3 tokens. According to the amended complaint filed with the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York on April 21, the plaintiffs accused venture capital firm Kelsier Labs, Meteora and four current or former executives of "deliberate misrepresentations" in the M3M3 issuance in December 2024. Investors claimed that the defendants packaged the token issuance as a project led by "trusted leaders of the Solana ecosystem" rather than "blatant fraud," causing them to lose at least $69 million between December 2024 and February 2025. The complaint states that the defendants artificially raised prices by manipulating sales, creating the illusion that tokens have intrinsic value, and inducing ordinary investors to take over. The plaintiffs accused the defendants of "conspiring to design the M3M3 token issuance plan to illegally profit at the expense of the uninformed public."
Meteora has previously been involved in the issuance of multiple controversial tokens such as TRUMP and MELANIA. In March, Kelsier Ventures and other companies were sued in New York for the alleged "deceptive and manipulative" issuance of LIBRA tokens, which were briefly promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei.
