Do you remember when Solayer developer Chaofan Shou said that he and Solayer engineers lost over $2 million on LIBRA? And that quote, "Let's see what two hackers and an idle weekend can bring us."
The weekend has just ended, and the LIBRA project has indeed been exposed to many dramatic events. Based on public information, BlockBeats has compiled the currently known stakeholders and their statements related to the issuance of LIBRA, in an attempt to piece together the entire process of this LIBRA farce.
Related reading: "After the Argentine President 'issued a shit coin' and shilled, the team made over $100 million in 4 hours"
Currently, the parties involved in LIBRA include President Milei, the project party KIP Protocol, the market maker Kelsier Ventures and its founder Hayden Davis, a person close to the Argentine government, and multiple project parties including Jupiter.
The team staged an internal conflict, with multiple parties exposing themselves
In the early morning of February 16, KIP Protocol posted on X stating that the issuance and market making of the LIBRA token were entirely handled by Kelsier Ventures and the project initiator Hayden Davis, and no related wallets belonged to KIP or co-founder Julian. KIP only accepted the invitation to manage and supervise the selection of sponsored technical projects after the launch. KIP publicly acknowledged its role in the project because the project information was listed on the official website and it recognized the potential of the plan.
At 8 am on February 16, Hayden Davis released a three-minute clarification video and related announcement, in which he mainly conveyed the following information:
1. Hayden Davis confirmed that he is an advisor to Argentine President Javier Milei;
2. All recovered funds - including all fees, earnings, liquidity, and everything recoverable - will be injected into the Libra trading pair within the next 24 to 48 hours;
3. He exposed that projects such as Photon, Bullex, Meteora, Jupiter, and Moonshot have profited from LIBRA.
The announcement also included the following key information:
1. Hayden Davis' responsibility is to ensure the liquidity of LIBRA, while still controlling all related fees and reserves;
2. Javier Milei's team had assured Hayden Davis that they would continue to support LIBRA during the issuance, but Milei deleted the tweet without informing the team;
3. Julian Peh, the founder of KIP Network and the main sponsor of the Libra Token, has not engaged in any misconduct. Davis speculates that the Milei team is trying to shift the blame to Julian to avoid their own responsibilities.
An hour later, the official presidential office account of Argentina published an announcement explaining the background information of the LIBRA project, stating that on October 19, 2024, Argentine President Javier Milei met with representatives of KIP Protocol in Argentina. During this meeting, KIP introduced its plan to develop a project called "Viva la Libertad", aiming to use blockchain technology to provide financing support for private enterprises in Argentina.
On January 30, 2025, the President met with Hayden Mark Davis at the Presidential Palace. According to the representative of KIP Protocol, Mr. Davis would provide the technical infrastructure for the project. It was stated that Hayden Davis has no direct relationship with the Argentine government, and was only introduced by the KIP Protocol representative as one of the project's partners.
The above are the responses from the main participants in the LIBRA project. In this process, Solayer developer Chaofan Shou, who suffered losses, first claimed that the market maker/creator of the LIBRA token was directly related to Arunkumar Sugadevan and another serial pool withdrawal scammer from India, questioning whether Kelsier Ventures had outsourced the token issuance to an Indian company. Through timeline analysis and tracking the flow of funds, he found that the creators of the LIBRA token were also insiders of the MELANIA and ENRON tokens, and developers of the OG.FUN project, and had already washed over $15 million.
He later deleted the post, stating that Arunkumar Sugadevan was not related to LIBRA, but only shared the same market maker. However, he created an information graph integrating the relevant content of his investigation, claiming that the LIBRA-related issuance and market making team manipulated multiple meme tokens.
Projects like Jupiter and Meteora are embroiled in public opinion crisis
In Hayden Davis' video, the most explosive content was his statement that projects such as Photon, Bullex, Meteora, Jupiter, and Moonshot had participated in the issuance of LIBRA and profited greatly.
Photon and Bullex are popular meme trading platforms in the English community, while Meteora, Jupiter, and Moonshot are one-stop service providers for Solana meme tokens that have become popular since the TRUMP coin. This time, many investors who rushed into LIBRA did so because they were able to find contract information on Moonshot.
In the comments of President Milei's tweet on January 31 about his meeting with Hayden Davis, the founder of Meteora had commented "changing the face of the world", which was taken by the community as evidence that Meteora had also participated in the internal planning of LIBRA. Therefore, Meteora founder Ben even released a clarification statement before Hayden Davis' video, stating that the LIBRA team had used the Meteora platform without permission, but Meteora had never controlled any tokens and had no direct contact with Milei.
Jupiter and its team members also issued clarifications, stating that a few members of the Jupiter team learned about two weeks ago from Kelsier Ventures that there might be a token project related to the Argentine President at some point in the future. "No member of the Jupiter team has ever received LIBRA tokens or any related compensation. Jupiter founder Meow did not know the contract address or the specific release time, and did not participate in any related operations. At the time, he was in Tokyo and was sleeping during the token release."
In Jupiter's statement, it stated that Meteora founder Ben learned the contract address a few minutes before the token release to verify it, but only shared it with the Jupiter team after the information was made public.
After Davis' video went viral, the multiple project parties he mentioned all issued clarification statements. Almost all statements said they would provide more detailed information to the community in the future, including Hayden Davis, who said he would continue to release videos to disclose the information behind the scenes. However, with the token price in place, after two days of fermentation, LIBRA still only has a market cap of $300 million.
Insider leaks: A manipulated President
The most explosive LIBRA-related news came in the early morning of February 16, when community developer @DiogenesCasares published an article titled "Bribery, Insiders, and a Manipulated President | The Truth About the $LIBRA Incident". He claimed to be an insider of the LIBRA token issuance plan, stating that he had started receiving messages a week ago about rumors circulating in the market about the imminent launch of a meme token related to Milei.
In the article, he wrote that he had contacted several core figures in the Argentine crypto community, mainly executives of large crypto exchanges and platforms. They all said they had not heard of this project. One person mentioned that an idea led by US investors, including the CEO of JUP, had once been proposed to create a token called $afuera, but this plan was never implemented.
He then learned that one of Milei's confidants had received a $5 million bribe to bring this token project to the President's attention. This does not mean that Milei himself received the bribe, but rather that his confidant took the money to facilitate Milei's endorsement of the token.
The author claimed that the behind-the-scenes team of this project is highly similar to the previous Melania token, and on-chain evidence shows that many early buyers of $LIBRA are associated with the Melania token. He also stated that the Meteora team has connections to the Melania token and played an important role in the LIBRA project, or at least had knowledge of the plan.
Moreover, many key figures in the crypto industry and the Solana ecosystem had already obtained inside information about LIBRA and received the token addresses before most ordinary buyers (who usually only rely on on-chain public data). Additionally, $20 million was transferred through multiple wallets, which had first received LIBRA from the developers and then quickly sold it for profit.
The author speculates that a group of foreign VCs, traders, intermediaries, and crypto KOLs tried to sell this token to the Argentine government, and the Milei government, being open to new ideas, became their target, which has a sense of absurdity like "the King of Chu liked a slim waist".
In the supplementary information, the author also emphasizes that Milei himself did not directly participate, and the parties involved are more likely to be a member of his government team.
Corresponding to this information, President Milei declared that the Argentine anti-corruption office will intervene to investigate whether government members, including the president himself, have engaged in misconduct. At the same time, a special investigation group (UTI) was established, with members from regulatory agencies in the fields of crypto assets, financial activities, and money laundering. This group will integrate information and urgently investigate the issuance of the cryptocurrency LIBRA and all the involved companies and individuals. All the evidence obtained from the investigation will be transferred to the judiciary to determine whether the companies or individuals related to the KIP Protocol project have committed crimes.
The Collapse of the meme Conspiracy Group?
Some community members are reflecting on why they lost money, and others are actively seeking redress. Developer Farokh (@farokh) stated that he hopes the LIBRA project leader Hayden Davis will expose the list of KOLs who received LIBRA token marketing remuneration, and he also called on crypto media and capable individuals to investigate this matter.
Previously, Dave Portnoy stated in a Space that he received 6 million LIBRA tokens for marketing, and he knew the token's issuance contract in advance, and he bought in early through a small wallet. The KIP team had discussed with him how to help him issue his own token.
Crypto KOL Beanie (@beaniemaxi) jokingly said that when even Dave Portnoy starts playing the role of the righteous whistleblower KOL, you can imagine how deep this matter is and how dirty the "trenches" are. (Note: Dave Portnoy previously launched the parody meme coin JAILSTOOL, and CZ had previously retweeted Dave Portnoy's tweet, "To all the meme coin players crying now: we all know the rules of the game, everyone is here to make money, no one is deceiving anyone. If you're buying and selling shit coins, you should be prepared to lose your investment. That's the risk.")
Beanie stated in the investigation around Kelsier Ventures that the meme coin KOL champ is a partner of the Kelsier Ventures team.
And the crypto KOL NDF is both a member of the Kelsier Ventures team and a member of the Fantom Troupe, which explains how the inside information about LIBRA was leaked to the inner circle. It's equivalent to a Wall Street M&A investment banker who also works as a day trader at the same company, which clearly has a conflict of interest.
Beanie said that Kelsier Ventures is essentially a family-style criminal group. In addition to CEO Hayden Davis, his father Tom Davis serves as the chairman, and his brother Gideon Davis serves as the COO. Currently, Gideon has cleared his X profile and deactivated his Instagram.
