Argentine President Javier Mairi has caused a political fire by promoting unknown cryptocurrency tokens that have increased value after his support.
In a social media post Friday night, Mairi said the coin called $libra will stimulate the economy and help small businesses grow. A sudden attention gave the token the first boost, but the great profit was erased as fear quickly spread that the coin was a scam.
Milei deleted the posts that were on his personal account five hours later, trying to distance himself from the venture. “I wasn't familiar with the details of the project,” he writes to X.
On Saturday night, in another post on X from the official presidential account, his initial approval of the coin was work. The president also said he has launched an investigation into whether anyone in his government, including himself, acted inappropriately, and whether anyone involved in the coin broke the law.
Miley was under attack for obviously pushing people into dangerous investments. His first post also prompted comparisons to President Trump, who launched Memocoin $Trump last month. The token skyrocketed for a while, then crashed.
The central left coalition opposed to Miley's libertarian government called his foray into the crypto industry “an unprecedented scandal.” Another political bloc said it was trying to set up a committee in Congress to investigate what happened.
Former President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, Miley's main political opponent, said that thousands of people who trusted him had “may have made wealth for privileged information.” He said he lost millions of dollars.
Milei's $libra promotion was just the latest in a series of moves he made in parallel with Trump. Miley said he withdrawed Argentina from the World Health Organization earlier this month, and his staff are looking into whether the government will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.
The coins promoted by Milei were presented as good investment tools for the country.
In his first post on X, he said $Libra (the echoing name of his political party, La Libertad Avanza) “encourages the growth of the Argentine economy and funds small and medium-sized businesses and Argentine ventures.” Ta.
“Liberal Argentina is growing!!” Miley added, adding, “The world wants to invest in Argentina.”
Shortly afterwards, a community note on X warned users to be careful with $libra. I urged people to “verify before interacting with the rug and before interacting with the project.” The term refers to the offering of fraud by developers who create crypto tokens, attract investors, then suddenly disappear and withdraw all their money.
Shortly after midnight, Miley deleted his post. He later said he had no personal connection to the crypto token. He denounced his critics and said he was trying to score political points.
“I want to say they see how low a politician is every day,” he said.
In a Saturday night post, Milei characterized Coin promotions as routines, likening an announcement that will become “everyday” when entrepreneurs wanting to launch a job-creating project. He added that he had two meetings on the coin in January last October, but was not involved in its development.
AgustÃn Pantano, a 28-year-old lawyer and supporter of Milei, said he jumped on $Libra for his first post on the President's X.
At 1am he checked his phone and saw that he lost about 90% of the $150 he had put in.
“There were some red flags, so I invested a little money,” Pantano said.
