THE CRYPTOCURRENCY FIASCO IN ARGENTINA
The Argentine president, Javier Milei, is in trouble after his brief foray into the world of cryptocurrencies, which left the opposition calling for his impeachment and a judge initiating a fraud investigation.
On February 14, Milei turned to X to promote a little-known coin called LIBRA, claiming it would boost Argentina's economy by financing small businesses. His post included a link to a website featuring his trademark slogan, “long live freedom,” and assured his 3.8 million followers that “the world wants to invest in Argentina.” Thousands did. LIBRA skyrocketed from nearly zero to almost $5 before plummeting to less than $1 within hours.
Milei quickly deleted the post, claiming he was unaware of the project's details, but the damage was already done. Argentine lawyers, led by Milei's political opponent Claudio Lozano, filed over 100 fraud complaints against the president, and an Argentine judge opened an investigation.
Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Hayden Davis admitted to participating in the launch of LIBRA, as well as MELANIA, a memecoin linked to the First Lady that briefly reached a market capitalization of $2 billion before collapsing. In an interview with Coffeezilla (Stephen Findeisen), a YouTube scam expert, Davis revealed that he controlled about $100 million obtained from LIBRA and detailed a scheme known as sniping, a practice where individuals with insider information or bots quickly buy newly launched tokens at ultra-low prices before the general public can react, which drives up demand and price, only to sell them for massive profits. In regulated markets, this would be considered illegal buying. He also named two organizers of Tech Forum, a Latin American tech conference, as participants in the launch.
