$LIBRA Crypto Update: It’s Worse Than We Thought!
Argentina’s Javier Milei drops his response after promoting the $107M $LIBRA crypto scam. New developments show a network of insider trading and corruption.
The story of Argentinian President Javier Milei promoting the $LIBRA token, which was later rugpulled by insider wallets, got even more interesting. After deleting the original X post just after $LIRBA crashed, Milei is back again with an announcement. Corruption accusations and Milei’s historical involvement with crypto projects are coming to the surface.
In this quick take, we unpack the newest developments of this wild incident. Hold tight, this might get messy!
Follow the Money
Here’s what we just learned: Hayden Davis, one of the guys behind $LIBRA, was apparently bragging about paying off Milei’s sister, Karina. According to messages found by CoinDesk, Davis claimed these payments gave him “control” over the president. That’s a pretty big deal, considering Karina is not just Milei’s sister but also his top advisor.
What’s really strange is how Davis and his team got so close to Milei in the first place. While well-known crypto companies couldn’t get a meeting with the president, these relatively unknown players managed to score three meetings with Milei’s inner circle between July and January. The whole thing came together just in time for their Valentine’s Day launch – you know, the one that cost investors $4 billion.
Milei’s Not-So-Great Response
When questioned about the disaster, Milei’s response was… interesting. He compared people losing their money to gambling at a casino. “If you go to the casino and lose money, what’s the complaint?” he said. Not exactly what you want to hear from your president after he promoted the token.
Making things worse, someone leaked the full interview footage showing that the questions were pre-approved, and a government official even jumped in to stop Milei when he started saying something “legally tricky.”
The Damage Spreads
The fallout isn’t just hitting Argentina. Solana, the blockchain where $LIBRA was launched, is taking a beating. Its token dropped 20%, and nearly $1 billion has been pulled out of Solana projects. This is especially problematic because Solana made most of its money from memecoins last year – over $500 million between January and November 2024.
Even bigger Solana projects are caught in the mess. Two major platforms, Jupiter and Meteora, are now facing accusations of insider trading. Meteora’s CEO already resigned, though everyone denies doing anything wrong.
This is not the First Time!
Here’s something that raises eyebrows: this isn’t Milei’s first rodeo with sketchy crypto projects. Back in 2022, he backed two projects that completely failed:
- Vulcanox: A gaming platform that collapsed after fraud accusations
- CoinX: An investment platform that promised 8% monthly returns (spoiler: it got shut down by regulators)
Each time, Milei did the same thing: promote the project, watch it fail, and then claim he wasn’t paid for the promotion.
What’s Next?
The US Department of Justice and Argentine judges are investigating. Meanwhile, the crypto world is debating how to prevent these kinds of scams. Some, like Solana’s co-founder, suggest creating a scoring system for new tokens. Others want to ban promotional tweets about purely speculative coins altogether.
For Milei, this couldn’t come at a worse time. He actually had some wins under his belt – like bringing inflation down from 211% to 2.7%. But now, this crypto scandal threatens to undo all that good work.
The big question now is: how far up does this scandal really go, and will anyone face real consequences? With multiple investigations ongoing, we might get answers sooner rather than later.
