- Argentina’s President denied knowing that the LIBRA project was a scam
- Over $4 billion were wiped out from the LIBRA market, accelerated by insiders’ cash out
Argentinian President Javier Milei is in the news today after he denied knowing that the LIBRA memecoin he initially promoted is a scam project. Within seven hours of its launch, the memecoin dropped by 96% on the charts, wiping out over $4 billion in market cap.
In a post on X, the President stated that he didn’t have a connection with the team behind the LIBRA. He also mentioned that he stopped promoting it after he became “aware of its details.”
LIBRA team profited $87M
According to an analysis report on the LIBRA team’s activity by Bubblemaps, project insiders pocketed $87M and were the sole sellers of the token. Part of the analysis read,
“$LIBRA is down 85% because the devs absorbed $87M of buy pressure into their pockets. $500M more to go.”
The insiders’ cash-out added sell pressure on the memecoin, dragging LIBRA’s market cap from over $3 billion to below $200 million at press time. Interestingly, the decline mirrored other “presidential memecoins” launched by the Central African Republic and Donald Trump.
In mid-January, the official TRUMP memecoin peaked at $15 billion in market cap. However, it soon dropped by 80%, exposing investors to a $2 billion loss.
Fast forward to February, President Faustin Archange of the Central African Republic jumped on the trend and launched the CAR memecoin. The token dumped by 98% from its $1 billion market size to below $20 million in less than a week.
The similarity and level of value extraction from these memecoins have made some speculate that they might be run by well-connected ‘grifters.’ In fact, Argentinian crypto analyst Alex Kruger termed the LIBRA project a ‘state-sponsored crime.’
At press time, LIBRA was valued at $0.16, down 96% from its all-time high of $4.56.