While Argentina’s President Javier Milei was busy promoting freedom on social media, a cryptocurrency called LIBRA was quietly preparing to rob his supporters blind. Launched on February 14, 2025, on the Solana blockchain, LIBRA rocketed from a fraction of a penny to $5.20 within hours of Milei’s endorsement of the “Viva La Libertad Project” on X. The transaction volume hit a staggering $4 billion. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything, as it turns out. The token’s value plummeted 95% faster than you can say “rug pull,” leaving investors shell-shocked and opposition leaders calling for Milei’s impeachment. The project’s red flags were about as subtle as a neon sign: a Gmail contact address, a website devoid of technical details, and a suspicious 82% of tokens concentrated in one wallet cluster. Real professional stuff.
Classic crypto scam playbook: amateur setup, concentrated holdings, epic crash, and politicians left scrambling to save face.
The numbers tell a story of calculated profit-taking. Eleven insider wallets, created just hours before launch, walked away with $43.8 million. Three particular wallets – “Gr3eiF,” “2NHGzd,” and “HyzGo2” – timed their entries perfectly with Milei’s tweet, securing at least $20.18 million. Meanwhile, the LIBRA team allegedly drained $87 million from liquidity pools. Unlike liquid staking tokens, LIBRA offered no legitimate staking benefits or real utility. Not bad for a day’s work in the crypto wild west.
Milei quickly deleted his promotional tweet and claimed ignorance of the project’s details. The small Argentine businesses that were supposed to benefit from the project never saw a penny. The crypto community split into its usual camps: those demanding stricter regulations and others defending the space’s frontier spirit. KIP Protocol, the mysterious tech consultancy behind the fund distribution, vanished into the digital ether.
The incident sparked heated debate about political figures promoting cryptocurrencies in Argentina. Bot operations suggested insider trading, while the project’s sketchy infrastructure pointed to a premeditated scheme. For Milei’s supporters, it was a harsh lesson in the risks of following their leader’s digital endorsements. Freedom, as it turns out, isn’t free – especially in the world of memecoins.
