Argentine President Milei Shutters Task Force Investigating Libra Meme Coin Scandal

Argentine President Javier Milei has scrapped a body tasked with investigating his role in February’s controversial Libra (LIBRA) meme coin launch.

Documents published on the government’s website on Tuesday show that the body was dissolved in a move approved by Javier Milei. Per the website, the task force had completed its investigation—but it didn’t reveal further details to the public.

President Milei in February was hit with criminal charges after advertising a meme coin called Libra, which he said would benefit Argentina. His government set up an investigative task force to look into any potential wrongdoing, following political pressure.

There was uproar from the opposition and citizens alike following the release of the Solana-based Libra; the coin rocketed up in value before crashing hard, leading some investors and industry observers to claim the launch was a pump-and-dump scheme.

A criminal investigation is still ongoing.

In the world of crypto, meme coins are digital coins that are typically based on internet culture, jokes, or people and events in the news. Thousands of these assets are minted and released some days, and very few manage to gain any substantial value. Fewer still hold onto that value.

President Milei denied any wrongdoing following the launch. Decrypt reached out to the government for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

But the Argentine leader might have chosen the right time to scrap the committee, according to James Bosworth, founder of Washington D.C.-based risk analysis consultancy Hxagon, which focuses on Latin America.

“Milei is riding high right now,” he told Decrypt. “His effort to drop currency controls has gone about as well as hoped and the peso is stable. He just won a small election in the capital. There is no better moment for him to shut down this investigation, preventing bad info from being released right before the midterm elections later this year.”

The price of Libra has spiked 60% over the past 24 hours, per data from CoinGecko, perhaps from investors eager to see the controversy fade and for the coin to potentially take on a second life. At a daily peak above $0.04 earlier, it’s the highest price seen for Libra in nearly a month.

President Milei won the presidency in 2023 after campaigning to combat the South American country’s sky-high inflation.

The eccentric leader has so far managed to lower prices in Argentina, which struggles with one of the highest inflation rates in the world. Last weekend, the president’s party won the capital’s legislative election.

Meme coins made headlines this year after President Trump released his own official Solana token ahead of his inauguration. 

The Solana-based meme coin shot up in price following a trading frenzy before dropping hard. While down 81% from peak, TRUMP remains the 52nd biggest cryptocurrency on the market. Its launch has attracted criticism from lawmakers who have argued the cryptocurrency constitutes a conflict of interest. 

President Milei attracted controversy before becoming Argentina’s leader, when in 2022 investors sued him for allegedly promoting a crypto investment platform that promised huge returns to users

Edited by Andrew Hayward