Inside the Presidential Pump-and-Dump That Led to a $4 Billion Crash
Argentina President Javier Milei endorses Libra meme coin’s launch on February 14, 2025, and it has become the subject of expert investigations due to a pumping scam. When insiders quickly sold their shares, they withdrew $107 million, causing the coin’s value to collapse and disappeared from its market cap in just a few hours. The report will examine the market’s response, the overall emotion of the community, and the impact of coin launches. We will also explore the main characters, the role of the Argentine government, and what might happen next for the $libra coin.
From Startup to Scam: Meme Coins About Libra
$libra is a cryptocurrency created by entrepreneur Hayden Davis, who is also the CEO of crypto investment firm Kelsier Ventures. Bloomberg reported that the KIP protocol, a company focused on decentralized AI technology, participated in the launch of $libra.
KIP claims they joined their actions after the release to help select technology projects and support AI’s efforts. Coins run on the Solana blockchain, known for its fast and cheap transactions and is popular with Meme Coin Traders.
People can buy tokens through a website called Vivalalibertadproject.com, a slogan often used by Milli, whose party is also known as La Libertad Avanza.
President’s endorsement ignited rapid gains
On the evening of February 14, Argentine President Javier Milei posted on social media that the $Libra token will boost Argentina’s economy and support small businesses. He links to the token website, promoting it as a way to fund local companies and take risks. The $Libra Token was reportedly created before the Milei announcement, and the website domain was registered on the same day.
Miley claimed in his post that Argentina is attracting global investment. Initially, the price of $libra started to approach zero and concentrated in some digital wallets. After Miley’s approval, its price soared to nearly $5, bringing its market value to more than $4 billion.
But it gets worse.
The website was created hours before launch, as shown below.
The domain was registered for a 1-year registration period.
There is no public owner information and there are multiple restricted domain statuses.
Was this project literally created overnight? pic.twitter.com/IpzuHWkHfL
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) February 15, 2025
However, a community warning will soon appear on his post, suggesting that users verify the project before participating, suggesting that it could be a scam where developers abandon the project after collecting funds. Shortly after, Milei deleted his post and claimed he did not fully understand the project details and decided to stop supporting the project.
In a few hours, the token was worth only cents and its market capitalization lost more than $4.4 billion. according to In Kobeissi’s letter, insiders began selling $87.4 million worth of libra within the first three hours of release, while 82% of the tokens were controlled by a group without publicly disclosing the economics of tokens.
Hayden Davis, the entrepreneur behind $ libra, admitted that some profits were retained despite the sharp drop in tokens.
The president’s gambling is unexpected
Retail investors’ interest surged celebrity endorsements after U.S. President Donald Trump released his official Trump Memecoin on January 18. January 19, ahead of the presidential inauguration on January 20.
Despite admitting the president’s mistake, he went on to retweet a post that guided how to buy Libra. It was very surprising that the Argentine president himself recognized the Libra meme coins. Such a valuable government individual promotes random meme coins is the worst thing to do. This move by the president is considered unusual, indicating that he is actively involved in the scam.
Libra scam Affected Trump token, causing the market value to drop by $500 million.
Argentina officially launches $libra investigation
Before the crash, other blockchain data companies had already attracted attention to the project. For example, blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps highlights the problem of Libra’s token learning, pointing out that 82% of tokens can be sold from the beginning.
According to a statement from the Argentina presidential office, President Oficina del posted on X on February 16 said Mili asked the Anti-Corruption Office to investigate itself and all other members of the government to ensure possible misconduct.
Meanwhile, Milei is under pressure from political rivals to endorse cryptocurrencies, which leads to a $100 million scam.
In his statements and tweets, Miley denied knowing about the project in advance. However, he deleted the statements. Furthermore, different stories come from other involvement. Earlier Monday, the KIP protocol, an encryption and artificial intelligence company that previously worked with the Argentine government, issued a detailed statement, questioning many claims about its role in the release of Libra markers.
The company insists that their CEO, Julian Peh, met with President Milei only once on October 19, 2024, and that the conference did not cover any specific projects, including “Viva La Libertad” or any token launch. According to the company, no other staff members met with the Argentine president.
Key players and their $ Libra’s conspiracy exposed
After the Libra coin chaos, investigative journalist Coffeezilla contacted people related to the 0xcea address and its creators. He found that Kelsier Ventures CEO Hayden Mark Devis, his father Tom Davis and known liar Arunkumar Sugadevan were behind.
Tom Davis admitted in an interview that their group not only created members of Libra, but also manipulated its initial sales to profit from it. They used several wallet addresses to buy early and made $6 million from these actions.
Insider trading strategy
An investigation into Libra scams shows that the scammers behind the project use their internal knowledge to play to their strengths. They use multiple wallets to quickly buy large amounts of tokens immediately after launch, a strategy called “sniper”.
This involves buying a newly launched token, usually before a regular investor has the opportunity to react. These early buyers sold their large shares a few hours later to make substantial profits that cost the average investor the losses.
In the case of Libra, the sniper connected to the wallet address 0xcea sold over $100 million worth of tokens, just like its market value peaked, exploiting the surge and giving other investors a depreciating asset.
The connection between Melania and Libra
A joint investigation by blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps and Chain Chain researcher Stephen Findeisen (also known as Coffeaczilla) reveals evidence that the same group is behind the failure of Libra and Melania tokens. Bubblemaps shared on Twitter that “we are very confident after analyzing cross-chain transfers and timing patterns.”
The survey found that the wallet activity of connecting different projects demonstrates how profits in one program are used to fund another through cross-chain transfer. For example, a key wallet on the Solana network marked “P5TB4” made over $2.4 million from early transactions of Melania tokens, and then transferred those funds to an avalanche wallet directly with the token creator “0xcea “middle.
Blockchain records show that the wallet 0xcea transferred $1.6 million to three Solana wallets a few hours before the launch of the $libra token. The wallets then quickly purchased $3.77 million in Libra tokens and sold them for $8.25 million, resulting in a profit of $6.65 million.
Further analysis showed that the wallet “0xceae…06E2” transferred USDC from the avalanche to Solana and paid Dave Portnoy, indicating that the wallet could be directly connected to the $librea team.
The Libra token briefly received support from Argentina President Javier Milei, quickly hitting a multi-billion dollar market cap, and then it fell 95% when insiders pulled out $87 million. Similarly, Melania tokens were recognized by the U.S. First Lady in January, with initially soaring value but then collapsed, causing huge losses to everyday investors.
According to Bubblemaps, the group may lead several other token launches under the names of Trust, Kacy, Vibes and Hood, all following a similar fast profit pattern before falling sharply.
Tracking the same sniper: From Trump to Libra
New data from Arkham shows that the same group quickly bought a model behind the launch of Trump and Libra members. Blockchain records show that entities associated with 6QS addresses (in the first block of their release, all snatched more than $1 million worth of Trump tokens, which allowed the tokens to be distributed to 5CP wallets and related addresses. , eventually selling Trump with a large profit.
The entity that bought $5M of LIBRA just now is connected to the entity that sniped $1M of TRUMP in the first block of its launch.
This entity sniped $1M+ of TRUMP as soon as it launched on the address 6QS. All of this TRUMP was distributed to 5CP, which then split TRUMP between… pic.twitter.com/oCua5ISNZt
— Arkham (@arkham) February 17, 2025
Shortly after President Javier Milei retweeted the “How to Buy Libra” post, he purchased a $5 million worth of Libra with the address linked to the network.
This fast, high-volume purchase showed an earlier Trump snatch strategy, suggesting a similar approach to leveraging Memecoin’s launch and endorsement. Investigators say this recurring large-scale strategy points to the system’s internal character market manipulation, which raises concerns that individuals behind these industries are planning pumping and lowering plans for multiple projects.
in conclusion
Until the investigation is over, we’ve always wondered who really lags behind the scam: Argentina president, Kip deal, Kyle Sier Wittels or Hayden Davis?
The Libra event highlights the growing dangers in the member market. Although many investors are attracted to the potential for quick returns, it is actually the insiders that actually benefit.
With the increasing number of fraud, the need for strict regulations and greater openness to commemorative spaces has become more urgent. The role of 0xcea wallets in Libra scams demonstrates the darker side of the cryptocurrency space where deceptive financial strategies and dishonest behavior are increasingly unchecked.