LIBRA Case Closed: Milei "Exonerated," But Who Do Retail Investors Seek Redress From?
Original | Odaily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Wenser (@wenser 2010)
Argentine President Milei, who was once embroiled in controversy for promoting the "presidential meme coin" LIBRA, has finally reached the moment of having his name cleared.
On October 23, Argentine federal judge Marcelo Martinez de Giorgi, at the request of prosecutors, dismissed the criminal investigation into Milei and his sister Karina Milei, ruling that the reported events did not constitute a statutory offense. On the day of the ruling, Milei published a long post on X, lamenting the slander, lies, and defamation he had endured over the past year, eight months, and nine days, directing his anger at what he called a "political persecution" and loudly proclaiming "Long live freedom," an apparent echo of the LIBRA token's theme.
On October 2, U.S. federal judge Jennifer L. Rochon also dismissed the class-action lawsuit against Libra project organizer Kelsier Ventures, decentralized finance platform Meteora, and developer Benjamin Chow, and denied the plaintiffs' request to file an amended complaint.
Looking back at this "political meme coin" storm of February 2025, the multiple parties involved maneuvered deftly and all walked away unscathed, leaving only the retail investors who suffered losses from buying LIBRA to weep helplessly.
The LIBRA Storm: Over 110,000 Wallet Addresses Lost Money, Total Amount Exceeding $250 Million
Looking back at this storm, the ones who were hurt the most were undoubtedly LIBRA token investors. Data shows that LIBRA's market cap once surged to approximately $4.6 billion before plummeting more than 90%; according to Nansen data, about 86% of participating traders recorded losses, involving approximately 114,000 wallets, with total losses of about $251 million (Recommended reading: "LIBRA Scandal Tracker: From Milei's Deleted Tweet to Infighting Among the Insider Team—Who Was Orchestrating This 'National-Level Rug Pull'?").
A $5 Million Payment Agreement Still Cannot Prove Milei Guilty
Let us briefly walk everyone through the sequence of events:
On February 14, 2025, after Trump issued TRUMP, Argentine President Milei posted on his personal X account to promote LIBRA—the project was named "Viva la Libertad Project" and claimed to be used to fund small businesses in Argentina. The token was deployed on Solana at 21:38 UTC that evening, and Milei posted a tweet with the contract address at 22:01. The price was pushed up to about $4.5 within less than an hour, with a market cap once reaching about $4.6 billion; subsequently, wallets associated with the team sold off tokens and drained USDC and SOL from the liquidity pool, and the price fell more than 94% within about 11 hours.
Shortly afterward, Milei quickly deleted the tweet, saying he did not understand the details of the token issuance and had no connection to the project team. Argentina's opposition immediately pushed for impeachment, and Congress established an investigative committee to launch an investigation. On February 17, Milei responded publicly for the first time on TN television, claiming that "at most only 5,000 people were harmed, and the vast majority of investors are Chinese and Americans," and said, "I did not make any mistake, because I acted in good faith," hoping to use this to escape subsequent investigation. Cointelegraph, after verifying on-chain data at the time, reported that more than 15,000 wallets had realized profits or losses of more than $1,000 on LIBRA.
In April 2025, The New York Times published an investigative report disclosing that call records obtained by Argentine federal prosecutors showed that Milei himself and Mauricio Novelli, a core intermediary of the LIBRA token project, spoke by phone 7 times on the evening of February 14, 2025—the very evening he posted the LIBRA token contract address on X and set off this crypto fraud. The calls occurred around the time of the promotional post, directly overturning Milei's previously repeated claim that he "had no connection whatsoever to the project" (see: "LIBRA Scandal Escalates: Argentine President's 7 Call Records and Draft $5 Million Agreement Exposed").
In May 2025, an Argentine federal judge ordered the freezing of assets of key figures in the LIBRA project, with the investigation scope including the financial operations of Milei and his sister Karina. On May 19 of the same month, Milei and Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona signed a decree dissolving the special task force (UTI) established on February 19 to investigate the Libra scandal, on the grounds that it had "completed its duties"—while at that time the opposition was pressing for Congress to launch an investigative committee.
In August 2025, a U.S. court lifted the freeze on a total of $57.6 million in USDC belonging to Libra organizer Kelsier Ventures head Hayden Davis and Meteora founder Benjamin Chow. Crypto KOL scooter, who had previously helped expose the inside story of the LIBRA token, said regarding the matter that five hours after Hayden Davis's funds were unfrozen, YZY, a celebrity meme coin associated with the well-known rapper Kanye West, was immediately launched, and this was probably not a coincidence—though this claim is currently not supported by evidence of fund flows.
A judicial update in March 2026 showed that forensic examiners extracted a draft agreement from the seized phone of intermediary Mauricio Novelli, involving a $5 million arrangement related to LIBRA promotion, drafted three days before Milei's post. The draft specified payment in three installments: first, $1.5 million (in tokens or cash) as an advance payment; the second $1.5 million was conditioned on Milei announcing on social media that Hayden Davis was his advisor; and the final $2 million was to be paid after Milei and his sister Karina signed in person a government consulting contract regarding blockchain or AI.
The case appeared to have solid evidence, ironclad and overwhelming, but what we received today was an Argentine federal judge, at the request of prosecutors, ruling not to open a criminal investigation into Milei and his sister. Such an investigation outcome is also seemingly difficult to satisfy the victims who waited so long.
Investigation Result: Milei and His Sister, Along with 9 Others, Did Not Commit Crimes; the Reasoning Is Consistent with Argentine Law
In the approximately 60-page ruling, Marcelo Martinez de Giorgi, judge of Argentina's Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 8, issued a ruling dismissing and archiving the case against Milei, his sister (Secretary General of the Presidency) Karina Milei, and 9 others, on the grounds that the reported facts did not constitute a statutory offense, accepting prosecutor Eduardo Taiano's request to drop the case.
The main reason for the ruling was that, under Article 336, Paragraph 3 of Argentina's Criminal Procedure Code, "fraudulent deception" in the criminal-law sense had not been proven. The project itself truly existed, the token had been issued, operations were traceable on-chain, and no fixed returns had been promised; the president's promotion may have increased exposure and trust, but "institutional status, public attention, or trust itself does not constitute a fraudulent scheme." Price fluctuations and the final distribution of profits and losses were insufficient on their own to prove a crime; fraud could not be inferred merely from the final distribution; no official acts, use of public resources, abuse of power, or negotiations incompatible with public office were found, and the anti-corruption office's investigation results supported that the tweet was an act of a personal account. The judge wrote in the ruling: "Arranging a contact or helping to organize a meeting does not in itself constitute influence peddling." Investigators recovered unsigned documents and notes from Novelli's phone, but the judge determined that evidence that Karina received payments remained insufficient.
It is worth mentioning that during this 20-month investigation, none of those under investigation was ever summoned for formal questioning.
As the judge's ruling brought the matter to a close, Milei published a long post on X that day, calling the accusations the work of a "political insider group" and journalists paid to do the job, and demanding compensation: "Now who will compensate me for the harm I suffered over this year, eight months, and nine days because of lies, slander, and defamation?" He also wrote, "Truth itself will prevail over everything."
Facts prove that the law does not always side with the victims, especially when the opposing party is the president of a country.
