Author: shushu, BlockBeats
Do you remember when Solayer developer Chaofan Shou said he and Solayer engineers lost over $2 million on LIBRA? And that sentence "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 dramas. BlockBeats has compiled the currently known stakeholders and their statements related to the issuance of LIBRA, trying to piece together the entire process of this LIBRA farce.
Currently, there are the following parties around LIBRA, including 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, and multiple parties self-exposed
In the early morning of February 16, KIP Protocol posted on X, stating that the issuance and market making of LIBRA tokens were fully responsible 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 funded technical projects after the launch. KIP publicly acknowledged its role in the project because the project information has been listed on the official website and recognized the potential of the plan.
At 8 o'clock on the morning of 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 the advisor to Argentine President Javier Milei;
2. All the funds recovered - including all fees, earnings, liquidity and everything that can be recovered - will be injected into the Libra trading pair within the next 24 to 48 hours;
3. Revealed that projects such as Photon, Bullex, Meteora, Jupiter, and Moonshot have profited on LIBRA.
The announcement attached a document, the main information of which includes:
1. Hayden Davis' responsibility is to ensure the liquidity of LIBRA, while still controlling all related fees and fund reserves;
2. Javier Milei's team had assured Hayden Davis that they would continue to support during the LIBRA 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 no misconduct. Davis speculates that the Milei team is trying to shift the responsibility to Julian in order to avoid their own responsibilities.
An hour later, the official presidential office account of Argentina released 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. At this meeting, KIP introduced its plan to develop a project called "Viva la Libertad" 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, and according to the representative of KIP Protocol, Mr. Davis would provide the technical infrastructure for the project. It is stated that Hayden Davis has no 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 of the main participants in the LIBRA project on the surface. In this process, the 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 in India, questioning whether Kelsier Ventures outsourced the token issuance to an Indian company. Through time series analysis to track the flow of funds, he found that the creator of the LIBRA token was also an insider of the MELANIA and ENRON tokens, and a developer of the OG.FUN project, and had already washed over $15 million.
He later deleted the statement, saying that Arunkumar Sugadevan was not related to LIBRA, but only shared the same market maker. However, he made an information graph integrating the relevant content he investigated, claiming that the LIBRA-related issuance and market making team manipulated multiple meme coins.
Jupiter, Meteora and others are deeply embroiled in public opinion crisis
In Hayden Davis' video, the most explosive content is his statement that projects such as Photon, Bullex, Meteora, Jupiter, and Moonshot have 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 coins that have become popular since the TRUMP coin. Many investors who rushed into LIBRA did so because they could find contract information on Moonshot.
In the comment area of the tweet posted by President Milei on January 31 about his meeting with Hayden Davis, the founder of Meteora once commented "changing the look of the world", which was used 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 used the unlicensed platform Meteora, but Meteora 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 it. But the token price speaks for itself, and 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", claiming to be an insider of the LIBRA token issuance plan. He said he had been receiving messages a week ago about rumors circulating in the market about the imminent launch of a meme coin related to Milei.
In the article, he wrote that he 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 of them 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 not 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 that his confidant took the money to facilitate Milei's endorsement of the token.
The author said the behind-the-scenes team of this project is highly similar to the token previously launched by Melania Trump, and on-chain evidence shows that many of the wallets that rushed to buy $LIBRA early are associated with the Melania token. He also said the Meteora team is connected to the Melania token and played an important role in the LIBRA project, or at least had some understanding of the plan.
Moreover, many key figures in the crypto industry and the Solana ecosystem had already obtained inside information about LIBRA and obtained the token address earlier than most ordinary buyers (who usually only rely on on-chain public data). In addition, $20 million was transferred by multiple wallets, which 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 (key opinion leaders) 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 slender waists".
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.
Consistent with this information, President Milei in his statement called for the Argentine anti-corruption office to intervene and investigate whether any members of the government, including the president himself, have engaged in improper conduct. At the same time, a special investigation group (UTI) was set up, with members from regulatory agencies in the fields of crypto assets, financial activities, money laundering, etc. This group will integrate information and urgently investigate the issuance of the cryptocurrency LIBRA and all the companies and individuals involved. All evidence obtained from the investigation will be transferred to the judiciary to determine whether the companies or individuals involved in the KIP Protocol project have committed any crimes.
The collapse of the meme conspiracy group?
Some in the community are reflecting on why they lost money, and some are actively seeking redress. Developer Farokh (@farokh) said he hopes that Hayden Davis, the person in charge of the LIBRA project, will expose the list of KOLs who have received LIBRA token marketing remuneration, and he also called on crypto media and capable people to investigate this matter.
Previously, Dave Portnoy said in a Space that he had received 6 million LIBRA tokens for marketing, and that he knew the token's issuance contract in advance, and had bought in with small wallets early on, and 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 shitcoins, you should be prepared to lose your investment. That's the risk.")
Beanie said 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 like a Wall Street M&A investment banker who also works as a day trader at the same firm, clearly 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 chairman, and his brother Gideon Davis serves as COO. Currently, Gideon has cleared his X profile and deactivated his Instagram.
