Argentinian president Milei promotes memecoin Libra, which crashes 96% just hours later

Libra, a memecoin promoted by new Argentine President Javier Milei on Friday, quickly rose to a market value of about $4.5 billion in the hours after he posted about it on social media.

However, later that same day he deleted the original tweet and apologized. The value of Libra fell rapidly and is now about 96% lower. The political opposition is demanding his resignation as some 40,000 investors lost money by investing in the coin.

Political Memecoins

Politifi or political finance products are well established by now. During last year’s American election campaign you had memecoins supporting Biden, Harris and Trump. By now, they are all worthless of course.

Javier Milei just DESTROYED the memecoin market:

Hours ago, Argentinian President Milei launched a memecoin, $LIBRA, for “the growth of their economy.”

Within 5 hours, over -$4.4 BILLION of market cap was erased.

Is this the biggest rug pull in history?

(a thread) pic.twitter.com/t4T69r851d

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 15, 2025

Just before his official start as new president, Donald Trump also launched his own memecoin. That collapsed two days later when Melania Trump also started her own. Meanwhile, investigations have been launched into the huge profits made by some early investors.

Argentina

It was therefore not surprising that President Javier Milei of Argentina launched a new memecoin on Friday, called Libra. With a short message on X (previously Twitter) he informed millions of Argentinians about the project. Libra rose to a market cap of some 4.5 billion dollars.

This is Julian Peh, the Singapore based CEO of KIP Protocol. He stole over $100M from us yesterday in a $4B rug of the Javier Milei promoted $LIBRA token.

Also involved is his partner, Dr. Jennifer Dodgson. A French national, and acclaimed expert of North Korean security policy. pic.twitter.com/aGWIHhpAOr

— Beanie (@beaniemaxi) February 15, 2025

However, hours later, Milei deleted the original post, explaining that he was “not aware of the details of the Libra project.” The market collapsed and the memecoin’s value fell by about 96% since its peak.

Several crypto analysts have already started an investigation into ‘insider crypto trading’ or a ‘rug pull’. Just like with the Trump memecoin, this will probably end with court complaints.

The Argentine political opposition is now demanding Milei’s resignation due to the fall of the memecoin, although that seems very unlikely.