Meteora’s Ben Chow: “I Just Enabled the Biggest Criminal in the World”

Amidst the chaos and uncertainty of $LIBRA and the revelation of Kelsier’s serial scam launches, DefiTuna’s Moty Povolotsky reached out to Meteora’s Ben Chow to discuss the harmful allegations made against the protocol.

After blowing the whistle on a series of extractive memecoin launches orchestrated by Kelsier Ventures via Meteora’s M3M3 launchpad, Povolotsky has made this conversation public.

Chow Denies Involvement

One of the conversation’s recurring themes surrounds how much, or how little, Meteora co-founder Ben Chow knew about Kelsier Ventures’ series of extractive launches. 

According to Povolotsky, Ben Chow frequently gave Kelsier Ventures’ Hayden David “a lot of the instructions” ahead of both M3M3 launches and higher profile launches, like $MELANIA.

“I believe, Ben, you knew this, because you actually gave a lot of the instructions. From Hayden's point of view, he many times would get on a call with you, or text you, and he'd say, ‘oh, Ben said this, Ben said that, Ben said it's launching this, Ben said he's gonna tweak.’ So this is a little bit foreign, like, this is a bit weird on my side, that you sound surprised.” - Moty Povolotsky, DefiTuna Co-Founder

Chow has confirmed on 𝕏 that he worked closely with his ‘friend’ Davis and Kelsier Ventures on the M3M3 launchpad. The platform’s first launch, $M3M3, was plagued by snipers and manipulation, leading to widespread controversy and claims of manipulation.

Despite these concerns, Chow asserted that he has continually referred memecoin project teams to Hayden Davis and Kelsier Ventures. These referrals ultimately resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars being extracted through $AIAI, $MATES, $ENRON, $MELANIA, and $LIBRA launches.

Responding to Povolotsky’s concern, Chow acknowledged that he “was involved in the $MELANIA one” but only on a technical level.

“Well, look, I don't know what happens underneath Hayden. I was involved in the Melania one. I'm not involved in everything, to all degrees, right, but Melania was… people tend to not know what they're doing, and then that one was so high profile and sort of rushed… I didn't want them to f*ck it up, you know, so I was trying to help them because there were issues on things… Actually, I wasn't aware of any of this stuff.” - Ben Chow, Meteora Co-Founder

While it has been made public that Chow was aware of token addresses, like $LIBRA and $MELANIA, pre-launch, the Meteora co-founder claims that no other Meteora or Jupiter team members were involved in any sniping. This claim is consistent with Jupiter’s statement yesterday, wherein the DeFi powerhouse assured users “We have conducted our own investigation and cannot find any evidence of sniping by team members.“

The conversation also includes allegations of market manipulation and mass token sniping among key players throughout the Solana ecosystem. According to Povolotsky, extended Kelsier Ventures team members like Gideon and Dr. Tom also sniped the launch with impunity. 

It is theorized that KOLs and influencers across Solana were also given token addresses pre-launch. Feigning sarcasm, influencers like Frank have potentially put themselves into a legal gray area. In a now-deleted X post, Frank remarked: “if you’ve been in crypto for more than 4 years and you’re not somewhat of an insider you need to rethink your strategy.”

“If there's a rug, this was a rug. Like 101,and everyone was in it from the insiders to what's-his-name DeGods, to Jakey. I'm sure everyone and their mother, everybody knew about it and everybody sniped it and some people were early, other people were late and a lot of people lost money and the worst thing of all is it's the President that gets a bad image.” - Moty Povolotsky, DefiTuna Co-Founder

Despite Chow’s shocked reaction to the allegations, the Meteora co-founder admits there were “red flags”. Chow was aware that snipers were targeting Meteora launches, but “always thought they were external snipers”, rather than his trusted friends at Kelsier Ventures.

Povolotsky claims that Davis made a threatening comment regarding Chow’s involvement, with the Kelsier Ventures CEO stating “if Ben ever turns against us we have enough to pin on him”.

Jupiter Cat Herder (Head of Communications) Kash Dhanda issued a statement in support of Chow. Dhanda asserts that Chow may have made a “strategic mistake”, but assures the Solana community that Chow is “not responsible for the insider trading or the failures of tokens launched on Meteora.”

Meanwhile, protocols from across the Solana ecosystem have come out to defend Ben Chow and the wider Meteora/Jupiter organization. Representatives from long-standing Solana projects like Save Finance, Helium, and Squads Labs have vouched for Jupiter and its associated apps.

Chow to Step Down

Towards the end of the conversation, Chow acknowledges that he is in a precarious position. Whether guilty of the accusations made against him or not, Chow stated that he will step down from his current position.

“I f*cked up because I enabled a guy I should not have enabled. I'm gonna have to step down. I'm gonna have to quit”

While no communication has come from Ben Chow’s account, Jupiter and Meteora co-founder Meow has issued a statement on the matter.

Meow supports Chow and stands by his statement, assuring the Solana community that no one at either Jupiter or Meteora was involved in market manipulation, or received tokens related to the Kelsier launches.

However, Meow acknowledges that Chow made an unacceptable error judgment by continually referring project leads to Hayden Davis and the Kelsier team. Chow has chosen to officially step down from his position, and Meteora will begin its search for new leadership.

Read More on SolanaFloor:

Meteora faces backlash over extractive M3M3 launches

Meteora Under Fire For Ties to Kelsier Pump-and-Dumps