Americas | Argentine Leader Draws Fire After Cratering of Crypto Coin He Promoted
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Argentine Leader Draws Fire After Cratering of Crypto Coin He Promoted
Javier Milei posted about the coin on social media, then deleted it and announced an investigation into whether any laws were broken.
Javier Milei, Argentina’s president, in Buenos Aires last year. Credit… Magali Druscovich for The New York Times By Natalie Alcoba Lucía Cholakian Herrera and Yan Zhuang
Published Feb. 15, 2025 Updated Feb. 16, 2025, 7:39 a.m. ET
Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, has caused a political firestorm by promoting an unknown cryptocurrency token that shot up in value after his endorsement — then swiftly cratered.
In a post on social media on Friday night, Mr. Milei said that the coin, called $LIBRA, would stimulate the economy and help small businesses grow. While the sudden attention gave the token an initial boost, the huge gains were erased as fear quickly spread that the coin was a scam.
Mr. Milei deleted the post, which was on his personal account, five hours later and attempted to distance himself from the venture. “I was not familiar with the details of the project,” he wrote on X, “and after having informed myself I decided not to continue disseminating it (that is why I deleted the tweet).”
On Saturday night, in another post on X from the official presidential account, his initial endorsement of the coin was described as a routine promotion of a business. It also said the president had opened investigations into whether anyone in his government, including himself, had acted inappropriately, and whether anyone involved with the coin had broken the law.
Mr. Milei had come under fire for apparently pushing people toward a risky investment. His initial post also prompted comparisons with President Trump, who launched a memecoin, $Trump, last month. That token surged for a while and then crashed.
A center-left coalition that opposes Mr. Milei’s libertarian government called his crypto foray “a scandal without precedent.” Another political bloc said it was seeking to create a commission in Congress to investigate what occurred.
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