Libra Forensics: Tracing the Flow of a Presidential Promotion

The core event was a tweet posted by President Milei on February 14, 2025, promoting the launch of the $LIBRA token on the Solana blockchain. The message, which he later deleted, claimed the project would fund Argentine startups and stated, "The world wants to invest in Argentina." This post triggered a violent market spike, with the token's market cap surging to roughly $4.5 billion before imploding.

Forensic analysis revealed a pattern of selective deletion. While Milei's original promotional tweet was removed, other messages from his account were preserved. This suggests targeted data manipulation, raising questions about what information was intentionally scrubbed from the public record. The deletion occurred just five hours after the initial post, following a torrent of criticism.

The timing of the token's creation points to a pre-planned launch. The $LIBRA contract was deployed on Solana just half an hour before Milei's tweet went live. Funds for its initial operation were transferred in the five minutes prior to the post, indicating the project was ready for promotion. This rapid sequence-from contract creation to presidential endorsement to a massive price pump-forms the digital trail of a coordinated event.

The On-Chain Flow: Pump, Dump, and the Search for Winners

The price action told the story of a classic pump-and-dump. After President Milei's tweet, the token's market cap surged to roughly $4.5 billion. But within three hours, its value plunged by about 89 percent. The collapse was total, with the token ultimately losing more than 96% of its value from its peak price. This violent volatility left over 44,000 investors with multimillion-dollar losses.

Legal efforts to trace and recover funds are now focused on specific individuals. Argentine courts have set asset embargoes at just under 37 million pesos for figures like Hayden Davis and Manuel Terrones Godoy. The appellate court recently instructed the investigating judge to reassess these amounts, calling for a "prudent financial guarantee" that aligns with the scale of the alleged fraud. This move acknowledges the difficulty in quantifying losses and securing assets.

The complexity of the recovery is underscored by the nature of the blockchain itself. The $LIBRA token operates on Solana, which uses a different model than Ethereum. Tracing these flows requires following unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) across a network that is not designed for easy forensic investigation. As one legal team noted, authorities detected transfers worth up to $500,000 in cryptocurrency from key suspects just days before the first freeze. The challenge is to follow those digital footprints from the initial pump to the final dumps.

The Legal Stakes: Unresolved Claims and Political Fallout

A year after the tweet, the legal case remains active but stalled. Argentine courts have yet to summon either witnesses or suspects in the civil claims brought by affected investors. The case is still in the investigative phase, with the Buenos Aires Federal Court of Appeals recently instructing the overseeing judge to reassess and update the asset seizure amounts within 90 days. This procedural delay underscores the difficulty in moving from allegations to concrete charges.

The political fallout has been significant. A parliamentary investigative commission concluded the presidential promotion was pivotal to the token's reach and was carried out "using the presidential office." The scandal has fueled tensions between the ruling coalition and opposition forces, with the president facing intense scrutiny. Yet, despite the probe and the commission's findings, President Milei has not faced direct criminal charges. He has maintained he had no role in developing the project and dismissed the backlash as political weaponization.

For investors, the case is a stark lesson in the extreme risk of political crypto promotions. Recovery of assets is proving difficult and nuanced. Legal teams warn that while emergency asset freezes are increasingly granted, actually recovering digital funds is an entirely different story. The complexity is highlighted by the need to follow unspent transaction outputs across blockchains like Solana, and by the detection of large cryptocurrency transfers-up to $500,000-by suspects just before freezes were imposed. The path to restitution remains long and uncertain.