On February 14, 2025, Argentina President Javier Miley announced the launch of Libra Memcoin on the SOLANA network. In his account on the social network X (formerly Twitter), he called to support the project, saying that he should contribute to the development of private business in the country. After that, the cost of the coin increased sharply, and its capitalization reached $ 4.5 billion.
However, a few hours after the launch, the token course collapsed by 99%. At the peak, its price reached $ 4.5, but then collapsed to $ 0.23, according to Dex Screnner. According to analysts, this happened due to the massive output of liquidity with insiders who bought coins in advance and sold them at the maximum.
Sacrifice the president
Bubblemaps and Lookonchain cryptanalysts almost immediately after the launch of token found signs of manipulations. According to their data, 82% of the total offer of the coin was originally concentrated on several wallets, and then quickly sold out. Moreover, the project did not publish in advance data on its tokenomics, which became an alarming signal for investors.
Opposition politicians began to demand the impeachment of Miley, stating that the president either deliberately supported the fraudulent project or was drawn into the scam. Deputy Leandro Santoro called the situation a “scandal of international scale” and demanded an official investigation. The financial chamber of Argentina also considers the incident as a possible scam with insider trade.
Miles himself a few hours after the first publication deleted a post about Libra and said that he had nothing to do with the project. He explained that he supported the “private initiative”, not knowing all the details. As soon as he found out about dubious schemes, he decided to stop distributing information about the token.
The president also emphasized that his political opponents are trying to use this incident against him.
On February 16, 2025, Miles instructed the Office for Combating Corruption to begin the investigation. The statement of the presidential office states that the authorities will check all involved in Libra launch, including government representatives. All collected materials will be submitted to the court.
Foreign roots
The investigation of the crypto community revealed that a group of foreign entrepreneurs, who had probably participated in the launch of the Melania token, had relations to the project.
– DC | En Ba (@diogenescasares) February 15, 2025
We are talking about persons related to the KIP Protocol project, which immediately after the jump in the price of Libra reported on social networks about the success of memcoid.
At the same time, the protocol team after the scandal with token stated that she had only an indirect attitude to this product. According to them, the Kelsier Ventures, presented by businessman Hadeen Davis, is all responsible for the implementation of the project.
The team of the decentralized Meteora exchange was also suspected of involvement in the scam with token.
Experts believe that on October 19, 2024, Miley met with representatives of Kip Protocol, discussing the possibility of financing small business through blockchain. In addition to January 30, 2025, he met at the Casa Rosada residence with that Hayden Davis, who was presented to him as an infrastructure partner of the project.
In turn, Diogenescasares admitted that for the promotion of Libra, one of the people close to Miles could get a bribe of $ 5 million. According to him, this remains to be proved, and even the fact of a bribe does not mean that the president of Argentina was in the course of what was happening. The analyst believes that Milea could “use in the dark.”
Scam for one hundred million
The collapse of the Libra memcoid led to the multimillion -dollar losses of investors, many of which invested in the project at the peak of its value, experts say.
They found that the main liquidity was withdrawn through eight insider wallets, which cashed more than $ 107 million. Among the assets received by scammers, there were $ 57.6 million in the USD Coin and 249,671 SOL in the amount of $ 49.7 million. The removal of funds began three hours after Token entering the market, which later led to the collapse of its course by more than 99%.
The insiders took advantage of the excitement and mass purchases of investors to sell their coins at an inflated price. As a result of a sudden collapse, thousands of investors lost their invested funds. Now their number is calculated by researchers.
Meanwhile, the investigation of all the circumstances of the incident continues. Both independent cryptoanalysts and the authorities of Argentina joined the process.
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Source: Cryptocurrency
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