Argentinian President Javier Milei is now distancing himself from the catastrophic launch of the Solana-based memecoin $LIBRA, which saw its market cap collapse from $4.5 billion to just $200 million within hours.
The token was initially promoted on Milei’s official X account and quickly raised concerns about insider manipulation and the legitimacy of the token’s economic claims.
At 5:01 PM ET, Milei’s account announced $LIBRA, stating it was a “private project” aimed at boosting Argentina’s economy by funding small businesses.
The project’s website, hastily registered just hours before launch, provided little transparency beyond a Google Form for funding applications.
Within three hours, on-chain analytics firm Bubblemaps identified that insiders had cashed out $87.4 million, with 82% of the token’s supply concentrated in a single cluster.
Large holders reportedly manipulated liquidity pools on Meteora to extract profits while retail investors were left holding the losses.
Data from DexScreener shows a trading volume of over $1.1 billion since launch.
Milei later claimed he was “not aware of the details” and deleted his post.
This backpedaling has intensified scrutiny, especially given his past involvement in the Coinx World crypto scandal in 2022.
Before becoming president, Milei had endorsed Coinx, a firm later investigated for fraud and misleading investment promises.
Kyle Baird is DL News’ Weekend Editor. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].
