The insiders behind Javier Milei’s disastrous LIBRA crash
The collapse of Argentina’s LIBRA memecoin not only wiped out $4 billion in market capitalization but triggered a political crisis and impeachment proceedings in Argentina.
Second only to Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin, LIBRA is probably the most consequential crypto scandal of 2025. In fact, some of the LIBRA team worked directly on Trump’s wife’s memecoin, MELANIA.
Below are some of the individuals who helped promote LIBRA, the crypto project that has spilled over into traditional finance and impacted a G20 economy.
Javier Milei
Argentine President Javier Milei’s endorsement of LIBRA on February 14, 2025, propelled its market cap to over $4 billion in just minutes. He shared his post with 3.8 million followers and implied government backing for the token.
Within hours, however, he deleted that tweet, claiming he was somehow “not aware of the details.” Later, he repeated his endorsement-turned-withdrawal of endorsement.
Milei now faces criminal fraud charges and impeachment threats from lawmakers of his opposition party.
Incredibly, the president tried to shift blame onto his own constituency. Rather than accept full responsibility for his actions, he likened the behavior of LIBRA investors to “playing Russian roulette and getting the bullet.”
Read more: Javier Milei fails to stop inflation in Argentina with bitcoin or anything else
Hayden Mark Davis
This Kelsier Ventures executive is widely considered the chief architect of the LIBRA rug-pull.
Davis orchestrated LIBRA’s liquidity deployment and coordinated trades for early insiders. Incredibly, he has admitted to “sniping” (a euphemism for buying tokens quickly) during LIBRA’s initial launch and profiting millions of dollars by selling near its peak valuation.
At one point, Davis said he held $100 million in “unreturned” investor funds. Across a variety of video interviews, including on X and YouTube, he claimed to require “leverage” to help resolve the LIBRA fall-out.
Davis was also an early insider in previous memecoin failures like MELANIA which fell over 90% within hours of its launch.
Prior to crypto, Davis was promoting various novelties on social media, including Supreme Oreos.
Dave Portnoy
Davis claims to have gifted LIBRA tokens and associated USDC stablecoins that backed LIBRA’s value to sports gambler-turned-crypto trader Dave Portnoy.
For his part, Portnoy claims to have given back any profits that would have resulted from those gifts and did not extract even a “penny” from the project.
In fact, he claims to have subsequently purchased a related memecoin that lost him substantial amounts of money.
Read more: SEC busts VanEck for using Dave Portnoy to pump BUZZ ETF
Julian Peh of KIP Protocol
Julian Peh’s KIP Protocol helped to launch the LIBRA token. Initially, Peh denied active involvement, claiming instead that KIP Protocol was only invited to manage tech projects and AI initiatives that LIBRA was supposed to fund. That tweet quickly attracted a fact-check via X Community Notes.
Peh said that KIP Protocol would move ahead with plans for Project Libertad anyway. He added that the solana involved with LIBRA hadn’t moved and would be allocated to assist Argentinian businesses as planned.
LIBRA post-collapse investigators
As the memecoin plummeted in value, many researchers began throwing out details and allegations about the monumental failure. Investigative journalist CoffeeZilla published an hour-long interview with Davis and pointed a finger of blame at crypto trader Naseem.
Developer Chaofan Shou claimed to have lost $2 million in LIBRA and alleged the nefarious involvement of another developer, Arunkumar Sugadevan. He then retracted that claim and re-pointed a finger at someone else.
Others blamed Ben Chow, co-founder of Meteora which hosted LIBRA’s primary liquidity pools where early insiders drained tens of millions of dollars during the token’s launch. Although Chow has resigned from Meteora, he’s not admitted any guilt.
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