Argentine President Milei Exonerated in Libra Meme Coin Probe

Argentina’s anti-corruption unit has cleared President Javier Milei for his involvement in the debut of the LIBRA meme coin, according to a court filing on Friday, although a criminal probe is still underway. 

The office said that the president was acting in a personal capacity when he posted about the cryptocurrency earlier this year, and concluded that there was no wrongdoing. 

President Milei in February advertised LIBRA on X (formerly Twitter), saying the cryptocurrency could benefit Argentina. 

LIBRA peaked at $4.50 after debuting before falling by 90% to below $.50, according to the crypto analytics platform DexScreener, prompting investors to accuse the developers behind it of running a pump-and-dump scheme.

The token, which racked up about $1.1 billion in trading volume in a matter of a few hours of its launch, is currently trading at about $0.03. 

Under political pressure from the opposition party, the anti-corruption office started its probe, alongside others, alleging that Milei had misused his position in promoting LIBRA.  

President Milei last month dissolved a body—the Investigative Task Force—set up to investigate him. The criminal investigation is looking into similar charges that Milei benefited from the meme coin’s launch. 

Meme coins are digital tokens often based on Internet culture or jokes. They are volatile and often crash hard after soaring in value as investors quickly cash out of their positions. 

The subsphere of the crypto space made headlines in January after President Trump introduced a meme coin—Official Trump—on the Solana blockchain ahead of his inauguration. 

President Milei—who won on a ticket to fix the economy in the inflation-stricken country—has been investigated before for promoting crypto projects. 

Before he was president, investors sued Milei in 2022 for posting about CoinX, a crypto investment platform that promised huge returns to users, on Instagram. 

The Argentine government’s anti-corruption department did not immediately respond to Decrypt‘s questions.

Edited by James Rubin