Argentine president Javier Milei pulled his second crypto rug this weekend
Last Friday, Argentinian President Javier Milei launched a crypto token that hit a $4.5 billion market cap before crashing 96%, triggering a weekend of chaos that unearthed insider traders and caused public embarrassment on an “international scale.”
Milei said that the launch of the LIBRA crypto token would fund small businesses and startups while growing Argentina’s economy. However, he subsequently deleted this post, claiming that he had no connection to the project and was not aware of its details.
Since then, a lot has happened.
Argentina’s opposition lawmakers said they are requesting Milei’s impeachment following the “scandal” that embarrassed them on an international scale. Various lawyers are launching legal action against Milei while some accuse him of fraud and price manipulation.
A man called Hayden Davis is currently at the center of much of the criticism and looks to have played a major role within the token’s team. In an interview with Coffeezilla, he admitted that the team sniped LIBRA at launch and also claims that he’s in possession of over $100 million worth of funds made from its launch.
Read more: Argentina’s leading presidential candidate sued for alleged crypto scam
Davis also admitted that he was involved in the launch of Trump-linked memecoin MELANIA. Analyst firm BubbleMaps has since linked the teams behind the two tokens.
The AI/Web3 firm KIP protocol is also under scrutiny. Argentina’s Office of the President claimed that the token was a product of KIP protocol and that it had two meetings with representatives.
Today, KIP Protocol denied how one of these meetings went down, and distanced itself from the second meeting with Davis. It stated it “did not initiate the project, it did not manage or direct the token launch process, and it did not receive any tokens pre or post-launch, and it did not profit from the token launch.”
Read more: Javier Milei fails to stop inflation in Argentina with bitcoin or anything else
According to Jupiter Exchange, the launch of LIBRA was an “open secret in memecoin circles.” Lookonchain claims that 11 insider wallets made $43.8 million buying and selling the token.
Indeed, Davis sent Barstool Sports host Dave Portnoy millions of LIBRA tokens to promote the project which Portnoy returned. However, Portnoy still traded the token and lost $5.34 million due to buying it too late. Davis did, however, reimburse him.
Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.