Argentina's president Milei posts then deletes support for Libra meme coin, faces impeachment calls
Feb 17, 2025
Key Points
- Argentina's President Javier Milei posted support for meme coin Libra on Friday, then deleted it hours later, triggering a crash that wiped out gains for most buyers while early insiders captured hundreds of millions.
- Milei faces impeachment calls at home as the episode exposes how presidential endorsements can weaponize crypto volatility, with the token creator sitting on roughly $100 million in gains from the hype.
- Coinbase announced it needs to revise listing policy because thousands of tokens launch daily, making market-cap thresholds useless as screening criteria—a signal that late-cycle token fatigue is collapsing perceived scarcity.
Summary
Argentina's President Javier Milei posted support for a meme coin called Libra on Friday, then deleted the post within hours, setting off a cascade of chaos that has exposed the mechanics of how presidential endorsements can blow up in crypto markets.
The token had been rumored for weeks. When Milei posted, the coin spiked to billions of dollars in market cap—fast enough for early buyers and creators to capture hundreds of millions in gains. But Milei's rapid deletion triggered immediate speculation: was this a scam? A hack? The token crashed hard.
What emerged over the weekend was a tangle of incentives, money, and bad timing. Dave Portnoy had gotten involved with the project, having known the team behind the earlier Melania Trump coin launch. Portnoy invested his own money heavily. The token eventually stabilized but remained volatile, and Portnoy reportedly lost enough that the token creator reimbursed him—and Portnoy posted about it publicly.
By Monday, Milei was facing impeachment calls in Argentina over the endorsement. A young creator—seemingly in his twenties or early thirties—agreed to give hours-long public interviews about the incident, a move that reads either as exceptionally brave or naive given the legal exposure. The creator was sitting on roughly $100 million in gains from selling into the hype.
The broader pattern mirrors late-cycle crypto behavior from 2022-2023: endless token launches creating fatigue, a collapse in perceived value, and the realization that there's no real scarcity when new supply arrives constantly. Coinbase flagged this explicitly in recent weeks, announcing it needs to revise its listing policy because thousands of new tokens are created daily, making market-cap thresholds unworkable as a screening mechanism.
The difference this time is presidential. Trump's token launch was treated as a moment—the logical endpoint of crypto's march toward mainstream adoption. Milei's Libra launch and subsequent deletion reads instead as the beginning of unraveling. The PvP nature of crypto communities means sides form instantly. Those who made money defend the project. Those who missed it or lost money call it a scam. Nick Carter's framing sharpens the actual complaint: crypto elites aren't upset about getting rugged; they're upset they weren't doing the rugging themselves.
The episode doubles as a cautionary lesson for other sitting leaders eyeing the space. El Salvador's Nayib Bukele has taken a different path—buying Bitcoin for the national treasury and posting screenshots of his positions on Robinhood. That gambit has worked out considerably better than Milei's weekend detour into meme coins. By comparison, the advice is obvious: maybe focus on your own currency instead.