Mondays and Tuesdays are usually non-eventful — especially if you’re in Asia, you know it’s still Sunday in the US and it’ll be followed by a lazy Monday characterized by blues. But well, that hasn't been the case this week.
Given everything that has unfolded over the past day, I couldn't just sit down and pen the usual breaking news stories and churn out the top headlines. I’m a freestyle yapper, and that’s exactly what I’m here to do.
Disclaimer: Don’t get confused with the names. There are a lot of main characters. Pretty sure you know everyone from the surface level, but I know you don’t know what I know, you know?!
Without any further ado, I’m gonna’ take you with me to dig deeper, connect the dots, and see the big picture.
The Viva La Libertad project
The launch of LIBRA was a disaster, to say the least. It was endorsed by Argentine President Javier Milei.
To rewind, Milei asserted in a now-deleted post on X,
“This is a private project dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy.”
He affixed a Solana contract address linked to the token alongside. To buy the token, users were directed to vivalalibertadproject.com — the go-to phrase with which Milei’s speeches usually end.
The LIBRA token briefly created a market cap high of $4.56 billion on the heels of its launch.
But, in no time, insiders cashed out over $107 million. Within the blink of an eye, the token lost more than 94% of its value.
Analysts at Lookonchain affirmed,
“The LIBRA team has cashed out $107M! 8 wallets related to the LIBRA team have obtained 57.6M USDC and 249,671 SOL ($49.7M) by adding liquidity, removing liquidity and claiming fees.”
The chart is in utter shambles right now.
This is where things get more interesting. Bubblemap brought to light:
Mileni in a fix
Of course, Milei was quick to wash his hands off and dissociate himself from the project. Just gonna say one thing — pay heed to his language and tone.
On X, he justified:
Well, he’s now in the soup and can’t even handle the spice, smh. Lawyers in Argentina have filed fraud complaints against Milei for promoting LIBRA.
Hypocritically defending himself in another interview, he said,
“I did not promote that. What I did, I spread the word.”
Like a hungry dog digging for bones, man’s looking for loopholes to wiggle outta this mess. Milei says that he has “nothing to hide” and acted in “good faith.”
He, however, admitted that he has “something to learn” from the episode — and that includes the need to “start setting filters” on what conduct is appropriate and what ain’t.
Speaking like a politician that he is, he added,
“The state plays no role here. The best case scenario is 5,000 people [were involved]. I would tell you that the chances of there being Argentines is very, very remote.”
As a cover-up, Milei's government is investigating the token's launch. The translated version of the official announcement read,
"Given the facts, President Javier Milei has decided to immediately involve the Anti-Corruption Office (OA) to determine whether there was improper conduct on the part of any member of the National Government, including the President himself.”
I mean…
The President, of course, didn’t orchestrate the whole LIBRA episode by himself. There’s another name, KIP, that you might have heard of. They’re an indispensable part of this puzzle.
Wait, who KIP, what KIP?
ELI5 version: KIP is a web3 company. It basically builds AI payment infra.
The guys here are selling the fact that they were hired to help distribute project funds to local businesses in Argentina but have denied creating the token or acting as a market maker.
In a long-ass statement released, it was clarified that KIP’s CEO, Julian Peh, didn’t discuss a token launch when he met Milei last year. The company wasn’t even informed about the LIBRA launch timeline.
Peh says that the company still intends to run Project Libertad and support businesses in the South American country as promised initially. He affirmed,
“Yes KIP is involved in the project, but our primary role is to help run the fund allocation to the Argentinian companies and less on the token side.”
KIP has dragged “the lead” Kelsier, into the picture. Its statement noted:
Enter Jupiter, Kelsier, Meteora
Before you ask who Kelsier is, here you go: Kelsier was the main lead entity that helped put LIBRA to sea. Its name has “Ventures” attached to it, which implies it's a venture firm that supports VC-backed crypto startups. Hayden Mark Davis is Kelsier’s CEO.
Well well well, it’s getting ugly out there for Davis and Kelsier. Parties associated with ‘em wanna cut ties. DeFiTuna, a Solana-based DeFi protocol with concentrated liquidity, has returned Kelsier Ventures’ funding.
Being a Jupiter maxi, it ached my heart when I first read that a few team members knew about LIBRA approximately two weeks before the launch, directly from Kelsier.
They said,
“It was an open secret in memecoin circles that an “Argentina Coin” was going to launch at some point.”
How convenient!
Meow “became aware” of the launch on the day it was to happen. However, he did not know the CA or the specific timing when it was gonna launch. He was in Tokyo and slept through the launch.
However, Ben from Meteora (a DeFi project encompassing dynamic liquidity protocols on Solana) became aware of the CA a few minutes prior to the launch for verification purposes. They say he did not share it with the Jupiter team until AFTER the information was public.
Fun fact: Jupiter’s Meow is also the co-founder of Meteora. Meow, in turn, issued a polished statement about Ben and his character but criticized his lack of judgment and care. Amid all the drama that’s unfurling, Ben has chosen to resign.
Ummm… Meow kinda seems freaked out. He apologized,
“Even though we hold very high standards for ourselves for token integrity at Jupiter, I want to apologize that we haven’t held other projects in the space to the same standard. I would like to apologize for the recent stress caused to the team, the community & the ecosystem as a whole.”
The DeFiTuna guy might have something rolled up his sleeve. He seems determined to “expose” it soon.
Other eyebrow-raise moments
Bubblemaps and Stephen Findeisen (yeah yeah, Coffeezilla) did a collaborative investigation and gathered on-chain evidence suggesting that the same entity behind LIBRA was also associated with the failed launch of the MELANIA memecoin.
Bubblemaps affirmed,
"After analyzing cross-chain transfers and timing patterns, we're highly confident this is the case.”
As though there were less red flags, the Kobeissi Letter brought to light a couple of other “WHAAAAT EVEN?!” deets.
As I breathe in and out, I wonder if we are even channeling our anger in the right direction or not.
Coffeezilla
Davis [from Kelsier] is one of the “big four” creators of LIBRA. The others in the equation are Julian Peh [KIP Protocol], Mauricio Novelli [Tech Forum Argentina] and Manuel Godoy [Tech Forum Argentina].
In the interview, Davis referred to himself as a "launch strategist" rather than a core team member and went on to admit that the LIBRA team was involved in sniping the token at launch. Alongside, he also revealed that even the MELANIA token was sniped at launch.
If it were a usual day, I’d exclaim, “Crazy!” but I guess events and revelations like this don’t really surprise me anymore.
Reading between the lines
Now that we know what story everyone has baked, it’s time to find discrepancies.
In a recent AP report, Davis pointed fingers towards Milei for abandoning the project when the litmus test result was out.
Davis said that KIP’s Peh was one of the “big four” creators of LIBRA. KIP’s official statement, however, contradicts whatever Davis said.
"KIP did not initiate the project, it did not manage or direct the token launch process, and it did not receive any tokens pre or post-launch, and it did not profit from the token launch."
Before you start drawing conclusions, hear out what Animoca Brands’ Chairman Yat Siu feels.
“It does also appear that KIP Protocol was the least involved in terms of the token launch and unfortunately dragged into this together with everyone else.”
If this is how your head feels right now, worry not; you ain’t alone.
Spilling more tea about what happens behind the scenes, Davis unearthed "project sniping" — a process where teams front-run their own token launches.
"Every single one of these launches, that's what happens… three to ten guys get these massive chunks."
Why do they do this? To protect them against outsider traders who could end up crashing the price.
Chalking out the motive behind sniping LIBRA, he said,
“So our goal was, can we take enough liquidity off to get all the snipers out, or at least control them so that when the chart dips down, it’s not going to crush the whole project.”
Just hit play and watch this:
“It's not a rug, it's a plan gone miserably wrong”
Davis controls the team wallets, holding over $100 million worth of funds raked in from the LIBRA launch.
Owing to his involvement with the token and the president of a nation, he’s been targeted by community members. Not only are people giving him death threats, but they’re also after his family at this stage.
He says,
“It's not a rug, it's a plan gone miserably wrong with $100 million sitting in an account that I'm the custodian of.
“The fact that I have control is also what's making me a target and also protecting me because this is an international incident, this isn't like some random scam.”
Behind-the-door deals
Davis had gotten into a deal with crypto influencer and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. Davis highlighted that every memecoin project gives information before the launch to KOLs. In fact, this is the so-called standard procedure.
He added,
“People that get mad are the people that aren’t insiders. All the bitching on socials is all the people that don't get into the deals. You'll never hear them bitch if they're in the deal.”
Portney, meanwhile, returned 6 million LIBRA tokens gifted by Davis. He was advised not to disclose the gift to the public because it was basically a “refund” to cover his Libra trading losses. Davis is now skeptical about this move, and says it was “probably a mistake.”
Portnoy, on the other hand, said in an X Space,
"I'm not going to tweet about this f---ing launch and act like I'm just, 'Oh, Milei's the f---ing best'...and not mention that they have given me coins… And by the way, I bought a shit-ton of it...they never gave me the coins before the launch."
Portnoy was apparently moments away from posting about his endorsement of the project. That’s when Davis asked him not to disclose the gift. He clarified,
“You can't say that we gave you the coins'...I can't accept coins if you don't f---ing let me say you gave me coins and I'm part of the project, so I literally sent the coins back."
Utter nuisance.
What’s next?
For the $100 million funds that Davis is in control of, there are three options: He said he’d either:
- Refund investors based on transaction history
- Reinject the funds into the LIBRA market
- Donate funds to an Argentine non-profit
If the refund option is chosen, then here’s what you can roughly expect per Zeta Market’s Tristan’s estimates:
“Despite total realized losses on Libra adding up to a whopping -$314M, refunding the $110m would actually make 90,672 users whole, over 99% of those who lost money on this ill-fated memecoin. The average refund size comes out to about $1.2k, and all traders who lost less than $58k would get their funds back.”
Meanwhile, other stalwarts from the space are trying to make people affected by the incident whole again.
Davis is responsible for ensuring that the project remains liquid. He also maintains control over all associated fees and treasury funds. In his words, he hasn’t, and neither will, take any of these funds out for his personal benefit.
Davis seems pretty fed up at this stage. He says,
"As the custodian — not the owner — of these funds, I do not feel comfortable transferring them to Milei's associates or the KIP team.”
He added,
“I would love instruction on what to do with it, I don’t desire to be [the] public enemy.”
Bottom line
Mannn, memecoins were supposed to be fun. What on Earth have we landed ourselves into?
At this stage, I literally (not metaphorically) wanna peel my eyes off and zone out. That’s the only rational way to survive the flood of absurdity.
If my sanity remains intact, I will pen part 2 of this WTF series featuring other crazy stories sometime later this week. Until then, don’t let the madness get to you!
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization, individual, or entity mentioned herein. This article is intended for commentary and informational purposes only. It does not seek to defame, harm, or disrespect any individual, organization, or entity. All references are made based on publicly available information and are presented in the spirit of constructive discussion and analysis.
