The $LIBRA Affair: Tracking the Memecoin That Launched a Scandal in Argentina

On February 14, 2025, Argentine President Javier Milei posted to X (previously known as Twitter) promoting the launch of the $LIBRA token on the Solana blockchain. “This private project will be dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy by funding small Argentine businesses and startups,” a message initially posted and deleted in Milei’s account read (as translated by X). “The world wants to invest in Argentina.” The message also included the $LIBRA Token Contract on Solana - Bo9jh3wsmcC2AjakLWzNmKJ3SgtZmXEcSaW7L2FAvUsU

However, within hours $LIBRA imploded, losing most of its value. President Milei deleted his original post and followed up with another disavowing the project.

"A few hours ago I posted a tweet, as I have countless times before, supporting an alleged private venture with which I obviously have no connection," he wrote in the post. "I wasn’t informed of the project’s details, and after learning about them I decided not to continue promoting it (that’s why I deleted the tweet).” The token subsequently lost more than 96% of its value from its peak price.

This is the second time in the last month that a world leader announced the launch of a token on X. On January 18, then President-elect Donald Trump launched the $TRUMP token — a memecoin on the Solana blockchain. For more on “Tracing $TRUMP,” read our blogpost here. 

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Market performance and reception

Shortly after the launch, $LIBRA received significant inflows increasing the token’s market capitalization to roughly USD 4.5 billion. However, within three hours of the initial post by President Milei, $LIBRA’s value plunged by about 89 percent.

$LIBRA’s extreme volatility sparked immediate questions as to whether or not this could be a “rug pull” or “pump-and-dump” scheme. Rug pulls are a type of cryptocurrency scam where developers abruptly withdraw liquidity from a project, causing the token’s value to crash, leaving investors with worthless assets. Pump-and-dumps, like the term implies, occur when the owners of an asset artificially inflate the value only to sell off when the asset reaches its peak.

According to the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission, pump-and-dumps often involve false news reports, anonymous organizers, and can be over in a matter of minutes. 

For example, in October 2021, scammers launched a token called $SQUID, named after the popular Korean Netflix show Squid Games. Its flashy website and slick social media accounts, replete with images from the show, falsely suggested official endorsement. Within weeks of $SQUID’s launch, its price surged by over 40,000%. But when holders rushed to realize their gains, they were locked out by the smart contracts underpinning the tokens. These, it turned out, allowed only the creators to sell. When the creators cashed out, $SQUID’s price collapsed from USD 2,862 to a fraction of a cent — pulling the rug out from under investors’ feet. Within moments, the anonymous scammers walked away with millions, some of which was moved through mixers and other on-chain laundering techniques.

On-chain findings

According to TRM Labs, approximately twenty minutes before President Milei’s tweet one address received one million $LIBRA tokens. After receiving the tokens, the address added the $LIBRA tokens to a liquidity pool on Meteora, a DeFi platform on Solana. This same address also sent $LIBRA tokens to several addresses which in turn added them to the same liquidity pool.

Next, addresses potentially associated with the $LIBRA team withdrew funds directly from the Meteora Solana Pool, gradually decreasing $LIBRA’s price. As shown in TRM’s graph visualizer below, USD 7.8 million worth of SOL were withdrawn from the Meteora Pool, circulated through two potential $LIBRA team wallets and eventually deposited at a consolidation point. The total amount withdrawn is highlighted in pink.

At the time of writing this report, there is a total of approximately USD 90 million worth of Solana and USDC distributed among the consolidation addresses. 

TRM will continue to monitor the movement of funds associated with the $LIBRA launch.

TRM Labs’ role in monitoring $LIBRA

TRM Labs plays a pivotal role in ensuring the integrity and transparency of transactions involving $LIBRA and other SPL tokens on the Solana blockchain. Its blockchain intelligence tools offer:

• Advanced transaction analysis: TRM maps every $LIBRA transaction, tracking fund flows and detecting anomalies such as rapid transfers, large-volume trades, or wash trading.
• Risk attribution: By linking on-chain activity to known entities, TRM identifies wallets associated with high-risk behavior, including connections to sanctioned addresses or illicit activity.
• Fraud detection: TRM’s machine learning algorithms analyze $LIBRAs trading patterns to detect manipulative schemes, such as pump-and-dump operations, helping protect market participants.
• AML compliance: TRM equips businesses and regulators with the tools to meet anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, ensuring that $LIBRA activity adheres to global financial crime standards.

How TRM supports broader SPL token monitoring

TRM’s capabilities extend beyond $LIBRA, providing comprehensive coverage of all Solana Program Library (SPL) tokens. These tokens are the backbone of Solana’s ecosystem, enabling applications in decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and more. TRM’s SPL token analysis includes tracking lifecycle events such as token issuance, distribution, and secondary market transactions. Its real-time dashboards and alerts empower users to address risks quickly, fostering trust and transparency across the ecosystem.