Argentine President Milei Remorseless After Promoting LIBRA Scam

Argentina’s President Javier Milei shows no remorse after pulling off one of the biggest rug pulls in crypto.

Following the backlash from the LIBRA memecoin scandal, Milei defended himself in a Feb. 17 interview with Argentine journalist and television host Jonathan Viale.

Milei claimed he did not promote the memecoin but only “shared it” as he is a fanatical techno-optimist. He also claimed he “acted in good faith and got slapped.” He denied that 44,000 people were affected by the scam, claiming that “many of those were bots” and that the total number of victims was “5,000 people, at best.”

Of the 5,000 people, Milei said the chances of any of them being Argentinians were “very, very remote.” He added that people who bought the token were “hyper-specialized in these kinds of instruments.”

LIBRA Scandal

Milei on Feb. 14 shared on X that there is a project dedicated to funding small businesses in Argentina, together with a link to its website, the $LIBRA cash tag, and the token's Solana address.

The token soared to a fully-diluted valuation of $4.6 billion, and promptly crashed by more than 96% less than a day later as Kelsier Ventures, one of the teams behind the token, pulled liquidity and fees from the contract, making about $100 million. Milei deleted his original tweet and distanced himself from the project five hours after posting the original tweet.

Speaking on why he pinned his post promoting the LIBRA coin before deleting it, Milei said, “Someone said my account had been hacked. That’s a lie. So I pinned the tweet to show it was effectively me who made it. I started seeing many negative comments, so, because I had doubts, I deleted the tweet.”

Milei denied making any mistakes, stating that he acted in good faith. However, he admitted that he needs to be more careful in the future.

“I think I have something to learn from this. I became president and continued being the same old Javier Milei. From now on, I will have to build up walls and filters [around me].”

The interview itself has become a source of controversy as an unedited cut showed the journalist was discussing pre-approved questions. Also, a government official interrupted the conversation when Mieli was saying something that, according to the official, could be "legally tricky" for the president.

Milei discussed the LIBRA token at a conference in Buenos Aires last October with KIP Protocol founder Julian Peh, according to a statement from Milei's press office. In January, Milei met with Hayden Davis of Kelsier Ventures, who Peh said would lead the project.

Corruption Claims

While many legitimate crypto projects have tried to approach Milei, it's odd that KIP and Kelsier Ventures, which are not well-known in the industry were the ones to gain access.

The answer could be in text messages reviewed by CoinDesk, Davis claimed he could "control" Milei because of payments he had been making to Karina Milei, his sister and close advisor.

Shockwave in Argentina

Milei’s involvement in the Libra memecoin scam shook the Argentine stock market. On Feb. 17, when markets opened, the Merval, an index that tracks the biggest companies in Argentina, dropped by over 5% according to Yahoo Finance data. However, it has rebounded since then and is currently up by 6.10%.

Opposition parties in Argentina have called for Milei’s impeachment in the aftermath of the Libra meme coin scam.

Milei, who was elected in November 2024, has been in office for over a year. Since then, he has reduced Argentina’s inflation from 211% to around 2.7%. He has also reduced state spending, attracted foreign investment in the energy and raw materials sectors, and expanded rental supply.

This Isn’t Milei’s First Rodeo

The Argentine President has been involved with several crypto projects over the years.

Milei’s crypto journey began in 2022 when he showed public support for two cryptocurrency projects, Vulcanox and CoinX.

The first project, Vulcanox, was a vulcano-based gaming and NFT platform. Milei praised it for its “sustainable economic diagram” according to a Feb 18., 2022 X tweet. However, Vulcanox didn’t last long and collapsed soon after following fraud allegations.

The second project, Coinx, was a crypto investment platform that promised to make users money by automating trades using Artificial Intelligence (AI), bots, and expert traders. According to local media, Coinx offered users returns of up to 8% per month.

Milei promoted the platform in an Instagram post, stating that they were “revolutionizing the way to invest to help Argentinians with inflation” after visiting the platform’s headquarters.

However, CoinX shut down not long after following a statement from the regulatory National Securities Commission (NSC) claiming that it had no legal right to operate in the country. According to local media, CoinX did not pay back investors before shutting down.

Following the move, Milei distanced himself from the platform, claiming he did not trick anyone into using it and was not paid to promote it. However, an Argentine lawyer, Juan Pablo Chiesa, sued him, claiming CoinX owed users between $515,499 and $687,332.