Argentina's President Currency Issuance Controversy: Singaporean Chinese Suspected of Planning and Manipulating, Raising Over 100 Million in Just a Few Hours

Original Title: Argentinian President Issues Currency, Is It a "Scam" Planned by Singaporean Chinese? Millions Made in Hours

Original Editor: Wu Says Blockchain

In the early morning of February 15, Beijing time, the liberal Argentinian President MILEI announced on his social media that he would issue LIBRA tokens for national financing.

According to GMGN data, a user address with wallet funds sourced from KuCoin: Gr3eiF…RtS4eb spent $900,000 to buy the LIBRA tokens issued by the Argentinian President at an average price of $0.26945, and sold them all at an average price of $2.9139, making a profit of $8.7 million within an hour, making it the address with the highest total profit currently.

However, after reaching a peak of $4.6 less than an hour after its launch, LIBRA has been continuously declining, with the average purchase price for the top 100 holders being $1.6, leading to significant losses.

According to EmberCN monitoring, suspected insider traders of the Meme token LIBRA issued by the Argentinian President made at least $20.18 million in profit. The operations of this address were as follows: in the hours before the tweet was published, they withdrew USDC and SOL from CEXs like Binance, Bybit, and Kucoin to prepare funds; they targeted buying at the very second the Argentinian President's tweet was released; and sold off in batches after the market pumped LIBRA. At least three addresses operated in the same manner.

On February 15 at noon Beijing time, Argentinian President Milei tweeted: "A few hours ago, I posted a tweet, like countless times before, supporting a private entrepreneurial project that I obviously have no relationship with. At that time, I did not understand the details of the project, and after further understanding, I decided not to continue promoting it (thus I deleted that tweet)."

According to LookOnChain monitoring, eight wallets related to the LIBRA team obtained 57.6 million USDC and 249,671 SOL (approximately $49.7 million) through adding liquidity, removing liquidity, and collecting fees, totaling about $107 million in cash out.

KIP Protocol tweeted that it is the team behind the Argentinian President's issuance of currency, stating that the Viva la Libertad project aims to assist Argentinian private enterprises, and that the LIBRA token has also achieved some success. To clarify unnecessary issues, we want to state that this is a private enterprise project, and President Milei did not participate in the development of this project, as he himself mentioned. This is a completely private enterprise project.

KIP Protocol's official Twitter introduced that it is supported by Animoca Ventures and is also the official AI partner of Animoca's Open Campus project. In 2024, KIP Protocol announced the completion of a $5 million private placement, led by Animoca Ventures and Tribe Capital, with other investors including GBV Capital, DWF Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, etc. Its official page shows that the team mainly consists of Chinese individuals from the National University of Singapore.

CEO Julian Peh's LinkedIn shows that he attended Raffles Junior College in Singapore for high school and obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree from the National University of Singapore from 2000 to 2004.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianpeh/?originalSubdomain=sg

Animoca Brands tweeted that it invested in KIP Protocol in February 2024 along with many other investors, but Animoca Brands, Animoca Ventures, and Open Campus did not understand or participate in the release and development of the LIBRA token.

Chaofan Shou, co-founder of security company Fuzzland, tweeted that he and Solayer engineer tonykebot lost over $2 million on LIBRA, sharing an image of the core members of the KIP Protocol team and captioning it, "Let's see what two hackers and a free weekend can bring us." KIP Protocol co-founder Julian responded to Chaofan Shou on social media, stating that LIBRA is not a rug project, and the substantial support the project has received is enough to prove its legitimacy. "If this were a scam, we wouldn't have the kind of launch support we have now. Just because you lost money doesn't mean this is a rug."

KIP Protocol co-founder Julian provided an initial response regarding the LIBRA project, stating that the Viva la Libertad project aims to promote the economic development of Argentina by providing funding for small projects and local businesses, supporting those seeking to expand their careers and contribute to national development. The funds are still on-chain, and no SOL has been transferred. The KIP team is involved in managing the allocation of funds to Argentinian companies, rather than the token aspect. The token did not undergo a presale, and all sales were conducted through a unilateral liquidity pool. The KIP team will formulate an operational plan for the Libertad project based on the original goals and promises not to use any SOL for purposes outside the project, with all funds being transparently accounted for, and more details will be provided later.

According to Lookonchain, user address: HJXRy9…hzQiaz spent 14,214 SOL (approximately $2.85 million) to purchase 1.11 million LIBRA, ultimately selling all for 3,964 SOL (approximately $781,000), incurring a loss of $2.07 million within 2 hours.

Andre Cronje, co-founder of Sonic Labs (Fantom), tweeted that in the past, we would argue over issues like an external account controlling a function that does not affect assets or a contract being controlled by multi-signature rather than time-lock. Now, presidents and sovereign nations are dumping on us in a full criminal mode. Crypto endures. When asked if he regrets returning to the crypto space, AC responded that this is just a result of broader adoption, and the meme coin craze does not conflict with his work. The participants in meme coins are a group that is completely indifferent to DeFi or even blockchain. Therefore, meme coins do not steal any attention because the participants were never part of our user base. So, it is a welcome development.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time Argentinian President Milei has engaged in similar activities. In 2021, he posted information related to a high-return investment platform called CoinX on Instagram. In June of this year, the Argentinian National Securities Commission (CNV) issued a risk warning to the public regarding CoinX and prohibited the platform's operation. Currently, victims have submitted materials to sue the Ponzi scheme Javier.

On February 16, KIP Protocol stated that the token release and market-making were entirely the responsibility of KelsierVentures, represented by the project's initiator Hayden Davis, and these wallets do not belong to KIP. All matters related to the release and tokens should be referred to Kelsier, as they are handling this matter and plan to transfer the tokens to the foundation. All SOL obtained today will be reinvested into LP. All market-making fees will be transferred to a foundation in Argentina. The foundation will continue to operate the program as originally planned.

Kelsier issued a statement indicating that Argentinian President Javier Milei initially supported and actively promoted the Libra token on social media platforms, including X and Instagram. His colleagues received his public support at the time of the release and assured me that he would continue to receive support throughout the release process. Despite previous commitments, Milei and his team unexpectedly changed their stance, withdrew their support, and deleted all prior social media endorsements. After consulting experts, I advised reinvesting 100% of the funds I control (up to $100 million) back into the Libra token and destroying all purchased supplies. Unless a more viable alternative is proposed, I intend to begin executing this plan within the next 48 hours.