A tweet from Argentina's president Javier Milei promoted a memecoin called Libra, which he described as a "private project [that] will dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy by funding small Argentine businesses and startups". The token quickly soared in price as traders poured in.However, within hours of the launch, insiders began selling off their holdings of the token. The token had been highly concentrated among insiders, with around 82% of the token held in a small cluster of apparently insider addresses. Those insiders cashed out around $107 million, crashing the token price by around 95%.After the crash, Milei deleted his tweet promoting the project. He later claimed he was "not aware of the details of the project and after having become aware of it I decided not to continue spreading the word (that is why I deleted the tweet)."
Is it a rug pull if it was only ever a way to funnel Russian money into Milei’s pocket? I don’t think average folks fall for grifts like this, or Trump’s meme coin. It’s just a new way to bribe people.
Like, in days past, they’d have just donated a bunch of money to Milei’s charitable organizations that would turn around and pay Milei exorbitant speaking fees.