Argentinian President Javier Milei shares $LIBRA scam coin on X, $4.4 billion erased from the market

Earlier today, Argentinian President Javier Milei shared a meme coin called $LIBRA on his X account, stating that it’s a private project dedicated to the growth of the Argentine economy. Within 5 hours, the project erased $4.4 billion from the market. In a since-deleted X post, Javier Milei mentioned that the project aims to “fund small Argentine businesses and startups.” Source: The Kobeissi Letter Traders were concerned about the project’s authenticity during the first hour of its launch. However, The Kobeissi Letter mentioned on X that multiple Argentinian politicians posted the news of the launch, hence confirming that the president’s account is not hacked or compromised. The project website, however, seemed off. It linked to a Google Form for funding applications, which is unusual for a project of such scale. The domain was apparently registered for one year only and created just hours before the project’s launch. $LIBRA TEAM IS CASHING OUT They already made $87M by removing USDC and SOL from liquidity pools https://t.co/hRGnRPTDiE pic.twitter.com/aiDmODKi6o — Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) February 15, 2025 Minutes into the launch, large holders of the coin started liquidating $LIBRA worth millions of dollars, resulting in gains of over $4 million as the coin topped $4.6 billion in market cap. It then dipped down in a straight line after marking a top at 5:40 PM ET. The coin crashed within 3 hours of the launch. Bubblemaps data shows that within the first 3 hours, insiders cashed out $87.4 million of the project by removing the liquidity. In a more recent X post, Javier Milei stated that he was not aware of the project’s details. He deleted his earlier post about the coin to avoid spreading the word. Source: DexScreener At the time of this writing, $LIBRA sits at a market cap of $162.0 million after erasing $4.4 billion from the market. The effects of this scam coin were also seen in $TRUMP, which fell sharply and lost over $500 million in market cap. Cryptopolitan Academy: Are You Making These Web3 Resume Mistakes? - Find Out Here