Libra's Wild Ride: President's Endorsement, Insider Cashout, and a 90% Crash

The Libra token, launched on Friday, quickly gained attention after Argentina's President Javier Milei endorsed it. The cryptocurrency's valuation surged to $4.56 and a $4.5 billion market capitalization shortly after launching. However, the Libra dream quickly fell apart when the cryptocurrency crashed over 90% in the following hours, and the Argentinian President deleted his post.

On-chain intelligence firm Lookonchain revealed that the crash was caused by at least eight insider wallets connected to the Libra team cashing out around $107 million. These wallets added and removed liquidity and claimed the fees, obtaining 57.6 million USDC and 249,671 SOL, worth around $49.7 million.

In an interview with crypto sleuth Coffeezilla, Hayden Davis, CEO of Kelsier Ventures and one of the "big four creators" of the project, discussed the Libra token's disastrous rise and fall. Davis admitted that the project's team sniped the tokens at launch, alleging they did it to prevent other snipers from doing it. He argued that snipping isn't bad if done by the teams, as it is usually done "to protect" the project.

Davis also admitted to being part of the team that launched the US First Lady's memecoin, MELANIA, nearly a month ago. According to him, that team also sniped the cryptocurrency at launch "because of how big the snipe was on TRUMP's." However, he alleges that the Melania token team did not swap the liquidity but sold liquidations.

The Libra token "facilitator" defended the project, claiming it is "not a rug, it's a plan gone miserably wrong," and over $100 million sitting in an account controlled by him. Davis explained he doesn’t wish to be the public enemy or keep the project’s money but considers it his “only leverage” against people potentially wanting to hurt him.

Ultimately, Davis claimed President Milei, who was recently accused of fraud over the Libra crypto launch, could address the project and his involvement as soon as today.