After the Argentine currency play people for suckers 1 billion, the community dug out what inside information within 36 hours

Authored by: shushu, BlockBeats

Do you still remember when Solayer developer Chaofan Shou said that he and Solayer engineers lost over 2 million dollars on LIBRA? And that line, ‘Let’s see what two hackers and a free weekend can bring us.’

Just as the weekend has just ended, the LIBRA project has indeed been exposed to many dramas. BlockBeats has compiled the currently known parties related to the interests of LIBRA and their statements based on public information, trying to piece together the entire process of this comedy of errors.

Currently, there are several parties around LIBRA, including President Milei, project party KIP Protocol, market maker Kelsier Ventures and its founder Hayden Davis, knowledgeable sources close to the Argentine government, and multiple project parties including Jupiter.

The team staged an internal strife drama, with multiple self-exposures from all sides

On the early morning of February 16th, KIP Protocol announced on X that the release and liquidity of LIBRA tokens are entirely managed by Kelsier Ventures and the project initiator Hayden Davis, and no related wallets belong to KIP or the co-founder Julian. KIP only manages and supervises the selection of technology projects funded after the release. The reason KIP publicly acknowledges its role in the project is because the project information is listed on the official website and recognizes the potential of the plan.

At 8 a.m. on February 16, Hayden Davis released a three-minute clarification video and related announcement, in which he mainly conveyed the following points:

1. Hayden Davis confirmed that he is the advisor to the Argentine President Javier Milei;

2. All funds that have been recovered — including all fees, profits, liquidity, and any recoverable parts — will be injected into the Libra trading pair within the next 24 to 48 hours;

3. Projects such as Photon, Bullex, Meteora, Jupiter, and Moonshot have profited on LIBRA.

Below the video, there is also an accompanying document announcement, the main information of which includes:

1. Hayden Davis’s responsibility is to ensure the liquidity of LIBRA while still controlling all related expenses and funds reserves;

2. Javier Milei’s team once promised Hayden Davis that they would continue to support during the LIBRA issuance period, but Milei deleted the tweet without informing the team beforehand;

3. Julian Peh, the founder of KIP Network and the main sponsor of Libra Token, has not engaged in any improper behavior. Davis speculates that the Milei team is trying to shift the blame to Julian in an attempt to evade their own responsibility;

One hour later, the official account of the Argentine President’s Office released a statement explaining the background information of the LIBRA project, stating that on October 19, 2024, Argentine President Javier Milei met with representatives of KIP Protocol in Argentina. At this meeting, KIP introduced their plan to develop a project called ‘Viva la Libertad’, aimed at providing financing support to private enterprises in Argentina using blockchain technology.

On January 30, 2025, the president met with Hayden Mark Davis at the presidential palace. According to the representative of KIP Protocol, Mr. Davis will provide technical infrastructure for the project. It is stated that Mr. Hayden Davis has no relationship with the Argentine government and is only introduced as one of the project’s partners by the representative of KIP Protocol.

The above is the response of the main participants in the LIBRA project on the surface. In this process, Chaofan Shou, a Solayer developer who suffered losses, first claimed that the market maker/creator of LIBRA token, Arunkumar Sugadevan, was directly associated with another Indian serial rug pull scammer, questioning whether Kelsier Ventures outsourced the token issuance to an Indian company. By tracking the flow of funds through chronological analysis, it was discovered that the creators of the LIBRA token are also insiders of the MELANIA and ENRON tokens, as well as developers of the OG.FUN project, and have laundered over 15 million USD.

Later, the post was deleted, stating that Arunkumar Sugadevan is not related to LIBRA, but only shares the same market maker. However, he made an infographic integrating the relevant content he investigated, claiming that the LIBRA-related issuance market manipulation team manipulated multiple meme coins.

Jupiter, Meteora and other deeply mired in public opinion crisis

In Hayden Davis’s video, the most explosive content is his statement that projects such as Photon, Bullex, Meteora, Jupiter, Moonshot, etc., participated in the issuance of LIBRA and made considerable profits.

Photon, Bullex are popular meme trading platforms in the English community, while Meteora, Jupiter, Moonshot are all-in-one service providers for Solana meme coins that rose to fame after TRUMP coin. Many investors betting against LIBRA this time are heavily invested because they can find contract information on Moonshot.

In the tweet comments on the meeting with Hayden Davis released by President Milei on January 31, Meteora’s founder commented, “Changing the world’s appearance,” which the community took as evidence that Meteora had also been involved in the internal planning of LIBRA. Therefore, even before Hayden Davis released the video, Meteora’s founder Ben issued a clarification, stating that the LIBRA team used the unlicensed platform Meteora, but Meteora never controlled any tokens and had no direct contact with Milei.

Jupiter and its team members have also clarified that several members of the Jupiter team learned directly from Kelsier Ventures about a token project related to the President of Argentina approximately two weeks ago. 'No member of the Jupiter team has received LIBRA tokens or any related rewards. Jupiter founder Meow did not know the contract address or specific release time, nor did he participate in any related operations. At that time, he was in Tokyo and was sleeping when the token was issued.

In Jupiter’s statement, it stated that Ben, the founder of Meteora, learned about the contract address a few minutes before the token issuance for verification, but did not share it with the Jupiter team until the information was made public.

After the fermentation of Davis’s video, several project parties mentioned by him have issued clarification statements. Almost all statements indicate that more detailed information will be provided to the community in the future, including Hayden Davis also stating that he will continue to release videos to disclose the information behind the scenes. With the token price at stake, after two days of fermentation, LIBRA is still only worth 3 billion USD.

Informed sources reveal: President being manipulated

And the most explosive LIBRA related, in the early morning of February 16th, community developer @DiogenesCasares released an article titled ‘Bribery, Insiders, and Manipulated Presidents | The Truth of $LIBRA Incident’, claiming to be an insider of the LIBRA coin issuance plan, stating that he had started receiving messages a week ago, saying that there were rumors circulating in the market about the upcoming launch of meme coins related to Milei. And it originated from traders and industry insiders who have reliable sources of information.

In the article, he wrote that he had contacted several core figures in the Argentine crypto community, mainly executives from large crypto exchanges and platforms. They all said they had not heard of this project. One of them mentioned that an idea led by American investors had been proposed, including some people, including JUP CEO, who had wanted to create a token called $afuera, but this plan never materialized.

Later, he learned that a confidant of Milei had accepted a $5 million bribe to push this token project in front of the president. This does not mean that Milei himself accepted the bribe, but that his confidant took the money to promote Milei to stand for the token.

The author claims that the backstage team of this project is highly similar to the token launched by Melania, the wife of former President Trump, and on-chain evidence indicates that many early wallets that bought $LIBRA are associated with Melania tokens. It is also stated that the Meteora team is connected to the Melania token and plays an important role in the LIBRA project, or at least has some understanding of the token’s plan.

Moreover, many key figures in the cryptocurrency industry and the Solana ecosystem have long been privy to the internal information of LIBRA and obtained token addresses ahead of most ordinary buyers who typically rely solely on publicly available on-chain data. In addition, another $20 million was transferred among multiple wallets, which initially received LIBRA from developers and quickly sold for profit.

The author speculates that there is a group of foreign VCs, traders, intermediaries, and KOLs in the crypto community trying to promote this token to the Argentine government, and MIlei government has become their target due to its open attitude towards new ideas, which is quite absurd in a sense of ‘Chu Wang Hao Xi Yao’.

In the additional information, the author also emphasized that Milei himself did not directly participate, and the person involved is more likely to be a member of his government team.

In light of this information, President Milei called for the Anticorruption Office of Argentina to investigate potential misconduct by government members, including the president himself. Additionally, a special investigation team (UTI) will be established with members from regulatory bodies in the areas of cryptocurrency, financial activities, and money laundering. This team will consolidate information and conduct an urgent investigation into the issuance of the cryptocurrency LIBRA and all implicated enterprises and individuals. All evidence obtained from the investigation will be handed over to the judicial authorities to determine if the companies or individuals related to the KIP Protocol project have committed any crimes.

The failure of the meme conspiracy group?

Developer Farokh (@farokh) expressed his hope that Hayden Davis, the head of the LIBRA project, would expose the list of KOLs who received marketing remuneration for the LIBRA token, and called on the crypto media and those who can afford to investigate the matter.

Earlier, Dave Portnoy stated in Space that he had received 6 million LIBRA tokens for marketing, and he knew in advance the issuance contract of the tokens and bought in advance through a small wallet, and the KIP team had discussed with him how to help him issue his own tokens.

Cryptocurrency KOL Beanie (@beaniemaxi) jokingly remarked that when Dave Portnoy started playing the role of a righteous whistleblower KOL, you can imagine how deep the matter is and how dirty the ‘trench’ really is. (Author’s note: Dave Portnoy once launched a parody meme coin JAILSTOOL. Previously, CZ also retweeted Dave Portnoy’s tweet, ‘To all the meme coin players crying now: we all understand the rules of the game, everyone is here to make money, and no one is deceiving anyone. If you are buying and selling garbage coins, you should be prepared to lose all your investment. That’s the risk.’)

Beanie stated in the investigation surrounding Kelsier Ventures that meme coin KOL champ is a partner of the Kelsier Ventures team.

As a crypto KOL NDF, he is a member of the Kelsier Ventures team and also a member of the Fantom Troupe, which explains how the advance news of LIBRA flowed into the internal circle. Equivalent to a Wall Street M&A investment banker, and also a part-time day trader in the same company, there is an obvious conflict of interest.

Beanie called Kelsier Ventures a family-style criminal organization. In addition to CEO Hayden Davis, his father Tom Davis serves as chairman, and his brother Gideon Davis serves as COO. Currently, Gideon has cleared his X profile and deactivated his Instagram.