Javier Milei, Argentina's Crypto President, Advertises a Token and Deletes the Post Amid Scam Concerns

President Javier Milei advertised a crypto token meant to help local Argentine businesses, but his support was met with widespread concern about a potential scam and he deleted the post.

Argentine President Javier Milei initially promoted a crypto token on Friday, but later deleted the post after facing criticism over a potential scam. The ‘$LIBRA’ token was said to be aimed at helping local businesses.

Milei, who is known for his support of free-market economics, shared a photo of the token on X late Friday, adding that the money raised would go to help small and medium-size companies in Argentina. He also stressed that the project was privately run and that he would not personally benefit from it.

“The world wants to invest in Argentina,” Milei wrote in the post, adding his slogan “long live freedom, damn it.”

However, the token’s name appeared to be a reference to Milei’s political party, La Libertad Avanza, or his libertarian roots as an economist. Milei told Bloomberg he met with the company behind the coin, KIP Protocol, months ago. The company’s website includes a blog post featuring a selfie with its co-founder and the Argentine president giving a thumbs-up dated October 20.

Argentines immediately began to panic over whether the president’s social media was hacked or if Milei himself had been duped by crypto scammers. Scams, often called “rug pulls,” are common on social media, with fraudsters hyping up a coin or NFT collection before dumping their tokens and making off with the money. Several high-profile crypto scams took place in 2022, including the collapse of the FTX exchange.

Community notes published on X cautioned people against the coin, which was trading at around $0.08 on Friday evening. Several comments on the post also expressed concern over a potential scam.

Milei deleted the initial post five hours later, saying he was “not aware of the details of the project and after having become aware of it I decided not to continue spreading the word.”