US judge dismisses LIBRA and M3M3 memecoin lawsuit with prejudice
A federal judge has dismissed a civil class-action lawsuit over the LIBRA and M3M3 tokens against Hayden Davis, Kelsier entities, and Meteora with prejudice, citing inadequate racketeering allegations and a lack of personal jurisdiction.
Judge Jennifer L. Rochon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed with prejudice an amended class-action lawsuit over the LIBRA and M3M3 tokens, denying plaintiffs leave to amend further and ordering the case closed. The defendants, including Hayden Davis, Kelsier entities, and former Meteora CEO Benjamin Chow, were accused of orchestrating an insider trading scheme tied to the December 2024 launch of M3M3 and the February 2025 launch of LIBRA, which was briefly promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei.[1][4]
The court held that the plaintiffs failed to satisfy the continuity requirements necessary to establish civil claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Rochon determined that the alleged activity spanned roughly six months, which was insufficient under Second Circuit precedent to establish a pattern of racketeering or a regular business practice of wire fraud. The judge also blocked an effort to expand the litigation to include the MELANIA, ENRON, and TRUST tokens, calling the proposed second amended complaint futile.[1][2][3][4]
Addressing individual claims, Rochon found that Chow providing technical token-launch instructions to Davis was consistent with his role managing Meteora and did not support a compelling inference of fraudulent intent. Claims against Meteora failed because plaintiffs did not show it was an entity or partnership capable of being sued, while remaining state-law claims against the Kelsier defendants were dismissed for lack of New York personal jurisdiction. The ruling centered on pleading and jurisdictional deficiencies and did not decide whether the defendants' underlying conduct was lawful.[1][2][4]
Key facts
- U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon dismissed the amended LIBRA and M3M3 class-action lawsuit with prejudice and ordered the case closed.
- The court ruled that plaintiffs failed to plead RICO continuity because the alleged scheme spanned only about six months and did not demonstrate a continuing threat.
- The court rejected the plaintiffs' request to file a second amended complaint that would have added the MELANIA, ENRON, and TRUST tokens.
- The judge found that Benjamin Chow providing launch instructions to Hayden Davis did not support a compelling inference of fraudulent intent.
- Claims against Meteora were dismissed after plaintiffs failed to sufficiently plead that it was an association or partnership capable of being sued.
- State-law claims against the Kelsier defendants were dismissed due to an absence of personal jurisdiction in New York.
- The dismissal resolved legal pleading and jurisdictional requirements without determining whether the alleged memecoin conduct was lawful.
Sources · 4 sources
- PR
ProtosArticle ·
Burwick Law loses LIBRA lawsuit against Hayden Davis Burwick Law’s lawsuit against Hayden Davis over the launch of LIBRA and M3M3 has been dismissed by a US judge with prejudice. Judge Jennifer Rochon’s findings were filed on Tuesday. She denied plaintiffs Omar Hurlock and Anuj Mehta leave to file a second amended complaint she called “futile.” Instead, she granted three motions filed by so-called “Kelsier Defendants” Davis, Kelsier Labs, Gideon Davis, and Charles Thomas Davis, Benjamin Chow, and intervenor plaintiff Dynamic Lab. The motions argued that Burwick Law: Couldn’t prove Meteora was actually a suable entity Couldn’t prove that Chow was fraudulent in his activities Couldn’t establish personal New York jurisdiction over the Kelsier defendants Couldn’t establish a consistent pattern of racketeering in the six-month timeline of token launches You can view Rochon’s full ruling here. Download Read more: Prosecutors find drafts of secret deal linking Milei to LIBRA, Hayden Davis It’s worth noting that Rochon’s dismissal is mostly on the basis that Burwick Law’s allegations didn’t meet specific legal requirements. As crypto law firm founder Ariel Giver noted , it shouldn’t be interpreted that “memecoins are legal,” and instead that the plaintiffs “sued the wrong thing, under the wrong statute, with the wrong facts.” LIBRA token caused over $250M in investor losses The defendants were accused of a coordinated insider trading scheme that involved the launch of the M3M3 token in December 2024 and LIBRA, the token publicly launched by Argentinian President Javier Milei, in February 2025. Plaintiffs lost tens of thousands of dollars, while Nansen Research claimed 86% of LIBRA investors lost over $250 million. During the lawsuit, unsuccessful attempts were made to prevent LIBRA-linked funds from being anonymised. The judge claimed that Hayden Davis and other defendants had committed to documenting all of their transactions in the name of traceability, and that Burwick Law hadn’t proved that there was “irreparable harm” to plaintiffs. Minutes before the hearing on this motion, an odd website called Libra Trust went live. It was created five days after a prior freezing order was lifted, and it once redirected users to a “pure nudism” blog. Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks . For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X , Bluesky , and Google News , or subscribe to our YouTube channel. The post Burwick Law loses LIBRA lawsuit against Hayden Davis appeared first on Protos .
Open source - SO
SolanaFloor@SolanaFloorPost on X ·
🚨BREAKING: 🇺🇸A U.S. court has dismissed the $LIBRA/$M3M3 lawsuit against @MeteoraAG, former CEO Ben Chow, Kelsier Ventures, and Hayden Davis, rejecting an attempt to expand it to include $MELANIA and other tokens. The dismissed civil claims included RICO racketeering, RICO conspiracy, fraud, conspiracy to defraud, deceptive business practices, false advertising, and unjust enrichment. Addressing Hayden Davis’s messages, the judge wrote: “That Chow provided Hayden with instructions on how to launch a token is equally consistent with Chow’s technical management of Meteora and therefore does not allege a compelling inference of fraudulent intent.” The court also found that Chow’s praise of President Milei’s meeting with Hayden Davis did not sufficiently establish a materially misleading statement.
Open source - MI
Market Insider@MrketInsiderPost on X ·
JUST IN: THE HAYDEN DAVIS, KELSIER AND METEORA $LIBRA CASE WAS JUST DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE THE COURT FOUND THAT THE PLAINTIFFS FAILED TO ESTABLISH RICO CONTINUITY https://t.co/Pk61nS4FVn
Open source - CR
CryptoSlateArticle ·
US judge kills Milei’s LIBRA memecoin lawsuit, leaving investors stranded Investors in LIBRA, the memecoin promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei, lost a district-court route to recovering their losses after a US judge dismissed the proposed class action over LIBRA and fellow memecoin M3M3. In a Sept. 29 opinion , Judge Jennifer L. Rochon dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice, denied permission to amend it again and ordered the Southern District of New York case closed. The decision also blocked investors' proposed expansion of the lawsuit to three other tokens. The plaintiffs alleged that insiders controlled token launches and extracted funds from liquidity pools at outside investors' expense. According to the complaint as recounted by the court, LIBRA launched on Feb. 14, 2025, and Milei promoted it before withdrawing his support that day. The dismissal resolved the legal sufficiency of the claims and the court's jurisdiction. Why the racketeering claims in the LIBRA case failed The central federal claim relied on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. It requires a pattern of related racketeering acts that either spans a substantial period or threatens continuing criminal activity. The court found neither form of continuity adequately pleaded against the Kelsier defendants, including Kelsier Ventures and Hayden Davis, and Benjamin Chow, Meteora's co-founder and former CEO. For the first route, the court treated the alleged conduct from October 2024 through the March 2025 complaint as a six-month period. Multiple schemes and a potentially large group of victims did not overcome that short duration. The opinion applied Second Circuit precedent that generally demands a longer period for this form of continuity, while expressly recognizing that two years is not a fixed cutoff. I Related Reading BitGo investors face flood of Aug. 7 class-action deadline warnings The alternative route required facts supporting a continuing threat. The court found that broad assertions about a repeatable token-launch business and referrals to other projects did not establish, defendant by defendant, that alleged wire fraud was a regular business practice. The dependent RICO conspiracy claims failed too. The proposed amendment would have added MELANIA, ENRON and TRUST, another plaintiff and new defendants. But the judge found it extended the alleged racketeering period to only seven months and provided no facts curing the continuing-threat defect. After RICO failed, the court dismissed the Kelsier defendants' remaining state-law claims for lack of personal jurisdiction. Allegations about nationwide social media and crypto infrastructure did not establish the necessary New York connections. The court did not reach the merits of those state-law claims. The court dismissed all claims against Chow for pleading defects, including insufficient allegations of fraudulent intent. Claims against Meteora failed because investors had not adequately pleaded it as a legal association or partnership capable of being sued. A New York court dismissed the claims with prejudice without deciding whether the alleged conduct was lawful. Hayden Davis's denied wrongdoing and jurisdiction objections in June 2025. The new ruling turns that earlier dispute into a concrete setback for investors seeking recovery through this action. The order does not establish that every alleged act was lawful or determine the status of every other possible recovery route. The post US judge kills Milei’s LIBRA memecoin lawsuit, leaving investors stranded appeared first on CryptoSlate .
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