The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has instructed the Anti-Corruption Office (OA) to investigate whether any member of the Government, including himself, engaged in inappropriate conduct, after the president promoted a cryptocurrency and decided to retract his claim due to suspicions that it could be a scam.
“In light of the facts, President Javier Milei has decided to immediately involve the OA to determine whether there was improper conduct on the part of any member of the National Government, including the president himself,” the Argentine Presidency said in a statement.
In this regard, the Casa Rosada has expressed that Milei “is committed to the due clarification of this event to the last consequences.”
Last Friday, Milei promoted a cryptocurrency token on the social network X, arguing that it would help “incentivize the growth of the Argentine economy,” although she later deleted it since the aforementioned token works with blockchain, a decentralized technology that allows transactions without the need for intermediaries.
The token, represented by the acronym $LIBRA, was quickly pointed out by economists as a possible scam since 80 percent of the tokens are concentrated in only five wallets, as explained by the Argentine newspaper ‘La Nación’.
In addition, the Presidency has reported the creation of a Unit of Investigative Tasks (UTI) under the presidential orbit to investigate the launch of the cryptocurrency $LIBRA and the companies involved.
On October 19, the statement reported, Milei met with representatives of the company behind the project, KIP Protocol, in Argentina, who presented their project “Viva la Libertad”, aimed at financing private ventures through blockchain technology.
On January 30, the president held a meeting at the Casa Rosada with the American Hayden Mark Davis, who, according to representatives of KIP Protocol, was going to be in charge of providing the technological infrastructure for the project. Davis was introduced as one of the partners of KIP Protocol.
The American businessman has explained that his “responsibility was to ensure that the token had sufficient volume, liquidity and a solid treasury to support its price and execute the vision of the project.” “However, as an advisor, there were many factors beyond my control,” he added.
Davis has confirmed that he is an advisor to the president, has blamed the Government for the abrupt fall of the cryptocurrency for withdrawing its support for the project and has assured that he will inject liquidity into the token again. In addition, his company has issued a statement in the same sense, as reported by the newspaper ‘La Nación’.
According to the official website of Viva La Libertad Project, the $LIBRA token promised to finance local projects through an online registration form. However, it did not specify selection criteria or technical details about the distribution of the funds, which raised doubts.
$LIBRA is actually a meme coin, a term that refers to a cryptocurrency created as a joke for entertainment or Internet trends, and is characterized by lacking support in the real economy.
POLITICAL CRITICISM AND FROM THE CRYPTO INDUSTRY
On a political level, the former president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández, was very critical of the president: “From your official X account you promoted a private cryptocurrency, created by who knows who. You inflated its value by taking advantage of your presidential investiture,” she denounced.
“And, to top it off, then you say that YOU WERE NOT INFORMED! Wasn’t it that you are “the best president in history”? Wasn’t it that you are “the genius of the economy”? From self-proclaimed “global leader” to CRYPTO SCAMMER,” she reprimanded.
Maximiliano Ferraro, from the Civic Coalition, also warned that Milei could have violated the Public Ethics Law and the Law of Financial Entities, “particularly with regard to advertising for the collection of resources (art. 19). In addition, what happened could constitute crimes of money laundering, fraud and/or scam, which the UIF cannot ignore.”
The general secretary of the Socialist Party of Argentina (PSA), Esteban Paulón, was the first to announce a request for impeachment and called the head of state “Javo Ponzi Milei” in reference to the Ponzi scheme or pyramid scam in reference to the Italian financier Carlo Ponzi.
The criticisms of the cryptocurrency industry regarding Milei’s promotion have also been forceful, warning about the centralization and risks of this crypto asset.
For example, a popular company that visualizes the relationships and capital flows between different cryptocurrency addresses, Bubblemaps, warned about this: “Another presidential meme. 82 percent of $LIBRA is held in a cluster. No tokenomics –economic structure behind a token– is shared: trade with caution,” they shared on their social media account X.
One of the most critical has been the liberal economist Carlos Maslatón, who publicly accused Milei of being “directly involved in a crypto fraud” and called the episode “cause for impeachment.”
