Argentina’s President Milei facing fraud case over crypto endorsement

Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, is facing impeachment calls over the ill-fated promotion of a cryptocurrency on his social media accounts. 

Milei’s official X account endorsed the Solana-based LIBRA token, telling his 3.8 followers it was a private enterprise designed to provide stimulus to the country’s economy by supporting small businesses and startups.

Just a matter of hours later, the X post vanished, sending the value of the token plummeting and leaving investors reeling with millions of dollars in losses.  

This has led to Argentine lawyers filing fraud cases against the incumbent president, but his office has dismissed notions that he was directly involved with the development or promotion of the crypto coin. 

$LIBRA, developed by KIP Protocol and Hayden Davis, could be obtained by following a link that sent users to a web portal named vivalalibertadproject.com, with an obvious nod to the phrase used commonly by President Milei to end his public addresses and comments online.

The President’s Office added that it took action to remove the apparent endorsement post on X to end speculation and limit exposure, following the initial public reaction to $LIBRA.

As reported by AP, one of the plaintiffs, a lawyer named Jonatan Baldiviezo described an illicit association to commit “an indeterminate number of frauds”. 

“Within this illicit association, the crime of fraud was committed, in which the president’s actions were essential,” he added.

The other signatories to the fraud claims included Claudio Lozano, the economist who was in charge of the Argentine Central Bank during the reign of President Alberto Fernandez.

Argentina president Javier Milei's memecoin weekend recap

– promoted $LIBRA in a tweet Friday
– said it was to stimulate Argentina's economy
– it rose to a $4.4B market cap, then collapsed 95%
– he has since deleted the tweet

Now Milei could face an impeachment trial pic.twitter.com/WSj4r1ar6X

— Morning Brew (@MorningBrew) February 16, 2025

Milei responded on X to state that he was merely unaware of the finer details of the crypto launch, accusing political foes of attempting to exploit the incident for their gain.

“I was not aware of the details of the project, and after getting informed, I decided not to continue promoting it (which is why I deleted the tweet),” he posted to Elon Musk’s platform. 

Plaintiffs in the case, as well as critics, have outlined what is known in the industry as a ‘rug pull’ when a developer launches an attractive crypto offering, enticing plenty of investor funding, only to pull out once the funds become overpriced rendering the token virtually worthless.

The same situation played out with the Hawk Tuah viral figure, Hailey Welch.

Hayden Davis was unequivocal on the reasons for the collapse of the crypto token, insisting the president was responsible. 

“Despite prior commitments, Milei and his team unexpectedly changed their position, withdrawing their support and deleting all previous posts on social media,” said Davis.

Image credit: Grok/X

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