The Shock From the Pump Dump of President Argentina's Memecoin LIBRA and KIP Protocol

One day after the launch of memecoin LIBRA, both the KIP Protocol unit and the promoter, Argentine President Javier Milei, are facing tremendous pressure from public opinion both inside and outside the cryptocurrency market. On 15/02, the news that has attracted the attention of the cryptocurrency community in the past 24 hours is definitely the "biggest political rug pull in history" and has shaken the world of LIBRA - the memecoin promoted by President Argentina Javier Milei as part of the "Viva la Libertard" initiative to help small and medium-sized businesses in the country overcome economic difficulties. Shortly after its launch, LIBRA's market capitalization skyrocketed to $4.5 billion before plummeting more than 90% as the team behind it was found to engage in insider trading and dump tokens held by the project, pocketing up to $107 million. This scandal is so serious that Mr. Javier Milei had to delete his support for LIBRA shortly after and declare to absolve himself of responsibility in the incident, causing the price of LIBRA to plummet. Meanwhile, the KIP Protocol, the team behind this memecoin, sparked outrage by declaring 'receiving labor', calling the LIBRA deployment a 'success', and thanking the participation as well as support from the crypto community. KIP's CEO, Mr. Julian Peh, then came forward to clarify, affirming that he will provide more details about the story behind and commit to keeping the amount of sold LIBRA to reinvest in the Argentine economy as originally planned. KIP Protocol And Kelsius Ventures Talk About One Side...

By February 16, 2025, the aftermath of the incident continued to surface. KIP Protocol this morning released its first official statement on memecoin LIBRA, stating:

• The unit implementing and establishing the market for LIBRA is Kelsier Ventures, represented by Mr. Hayden Davis. KIP Protocol does not participate in token trading, and the wallets releasing tokens to the market do not belong to KIP.
• The role of KIP in the project is simply to identify businesses in Argentina that need assistance from the LIBRA initiative after the token has been launched, as well as monitor the disbursement process.
• KIP acknowledges its connection to LIBRA as it has been mentioned on the project's website, but has no ill intentions and still believes in the mission of the LIBRA project.
• KIP Protocol commits to using all the SOL received to provide liquidity for trading pairs with LIBRA, as well as using market making fees to establish an organization in Argentina to continue the project's original mission.
• KIP Protocol also declared that the community should direct criticism towards the token pumping activity for Kelsier Ventures as this is the direct promoter of the memecoin issuance wave. As for me, Kelsier Ventures and Mr. Hayden Davis also posted official announcements and accepted to come forward to take responsibility. Mr. Davis stated that he is an advisor to President Javier Milei and is carrying out many much larger-scale plans in the field of tokenizing real assets in Argentina. Initially, Mr. Milei agreed to support the LIBRA plan, but due to the negative public reaction, the President unexpectedly withdrew without prior notice to Kelsier, as well as accused the project team of being scammers, while trying to shift responsibility to the KIP Protocol.

Kelsier Ventures affirms that they will reinvest all proceeds into LIBRA in the next 24-48 hours, as well as want to offer the community the most beneficial solutions for investors in general, while calling on Solana DEX platforms that have participated in processing LIBRA transactions such as Jupiter, Meteora, Moonshot,... to refund the transaction fees collected from this memecoin to establish a fund to address damages and bring about fairness. Kelsier Ventures' Account X still features a post capturing a photo between President Milei and Mr. Hayden Davis at the end of January. Shortly after the announcements of KIP Protocol and Kelsier Ventures were posted, the price of LIBRA doubled at times before dropping to a market capitalization of 400 million USD at the time of writing.

...The President of Argentina tells another story Meanwhile, the Office of the President of Argentina issued a separate statement on the incident, recounting a story with many different points. According to the President's Office, from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, Mr. Javier Milei had meetings with representatives of KIP Protocol, Julian Peh, and Kelsier Ventures, Hayden Davis, to discuss the application of blockchain technology to assist domestic businesses. However, the President's Office confirmed that Mr. Davis is not an advisor to Mr. Milei, but instead was introduced by KIP Protocol to handle the technical work for the token issuance process.

By February 15, Milei's social media account posted information about the 'Viva la Libertard' project by KIP Protocol, an action he often takes to support business development initiatives in Argentina. Not directly involved in the project, and seeing the repercussions and not wanting to cause further rumors, Milei decided to delete the original post and issued a statement denying any involvement. Due to the serious nature of the issue, President Milei stated that he has instructed the Office of Anti-Corruption in Argentina to investigate the case and clarify any misconduct by any member of the cabinet, including the President himself. In addition, Mr. Milei has also set up another investigative team consisting of members from relevant ministries with authority over crypto assets to conduct a separate investigation into LIBRA, companies, and individuals involved. All information collected will be handed over to the Argentine Court to clarify whether individuals and organizations associated with KIP Protocol have engaged in fraud or not. As for me, President Milei said he would be determined to go to the end to clarify the matter and be ready to take responsibility. Although it is not yet known which story of KIP Protocol or President Milei is more accurate, from the website of "Viva la Libertard," it can be clearly seen that this project has been developed by KIP Protocol, not just KIP's participation to oversee disbursement as claimed above.

According to Reuters, the opposition party in Argentina is using the LIBRA scandal to put pressure on President Milei, even demanding his impeachment for endorsing a billion-dollar cryptocurrency scam that has embarrassed Argentina on the international stage.