One 12 months has handed since Argentine President Javier Milei backed a venture that drove a whole bunch of 1000’s of individuals worldwide to put money into Libra, a meme coin that turned out to be a rug pull.
Alfonso Gamboa Silvestre, a 25-year-old from Chile, was among the many many merchants who suffered steep losses. The token’s launch and swift demise value him $10,000. Since that second, he has left the crypto trade for good.
A Presidential Endorsement That Drove a Shopping for Frenzy
On Valentine’s Day final 12 months, Gamboa Silvestre was buying and selling on his pc. The day appeared regular till a notification popped up on his cellphone from one of many many crypto teams he had on Telegram.
He opened the message, which learn one thing alongside the strains of “Argentina’s president just launched a crypto token.” Gamboa Silvestre ran to X (previously Twitter) to see whether or not it was true.
At first, he thought Milei’s account had been hacked. However after fastidiously studying the president’s verified tweet and the “Viva La Libertad Project” web site he included, Gamboa Silvestre dominated out the chance.
So he purchased the token. In complete, he invested $5,000.
“I made two purchases. First, a smaller one. When I was totally sure it was [Milei’s] tweet, I made a bigger one,” Gamboa Silvestre instructed BeInCrypto in an interview in Spanish.
After that, Gamboa Silvestre left the home to exit to dinner along with his household, however he couldn’t preserve his eyes off his cellphone. Libra’s worth stored dropping, and he didn’t know what to do.
Selecting what appeared greatest on the menu and averting his household’s fearful gaze was onerous sufficient, so he locked himself within the restaurant’s lavatory.
“At first I thought the token was going to go down, and then it was going to go back up to infinity,” Gamboa Silvestre stated. “But that didn’t happen. I saw that it was going down and down, and my February 14th ended up being a nightmare.”
As buyers started withdrawing their cash en masse, so did Gamboa Silvestre. He ended up doubling his authentic funding in losses.
The occasion additionally marked his everlasting exit from the crypto ecosystem.
From Energetic Dealer To Full Exit
Gamboa Silvestre first ventured into crypto in 2016, principally out of curiosity. Nevertheless, he started to take it critically in 2022 and have become an lively dealer.
The meme coin sector had handled him properly at first.
Gamboa Silvestre was among the many first buyers in TRUMP and MELANIA, the 2 tokens launched by US President Donald Trump and First Girl Melania Trump lower than 48 hours earlier than Trump assumed the presidency.
He fared properly for himself, and he believed that the story could be related with Libra.
“I thought that, since Milei had been having different meetings with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, I said, well, this is going down the same path, they’re going to do things right, and I’m going to be able to make money with that,” Gamboa Silvestre recalled.
However issues didn’t end up that approach. Apart from the cash he misplaced, Gamboa Silvestre surrendered one thing that was much more vital to him: his love for crypto.
“After what happened with Libra, I completely stepped away from that world. I stopped doing something that I really liked that had generated me a lot of profitability during that period,” he stated. “In the future, I saw myself only living from that. But I lost all confidence.”
At present, the one ties that Gamboa Silvestre has left to the trade are his participation in a category motion introduced towards Milei.
Knowledge Disputes Milei’s Claims
Gamboa Silvestre is certainly one of 212 buyers in search of reparation for his or her losses in a lawsuit pending in Argentina.
Despite the fact that Milei has repeatedly dialled down the impression that LIBRA had on buyers, the information inform a distinct story.
In keeping with knowledge from Ripio, only one centralized trade working within the nation, 1,329 residents misplaced cash. These numbers immediately contradicted Milei’s earlier claims that solely a handful of Argentine buyers had been affected.
⚠️ Miren la notificación que mandaron desde la billetera de criptos Ripio el día que salió $LIBRA:
“Conseguí el token impulsado por el Presidente Javier Milei”. https://t.co/sEK4pDgowY
— mauro (@MauroFdz) February 20, 2025
Argentines weren’t the one ones who had misplaced cash. The impression was worldwide, affecting buyers wherever from Bosnia to Lebanon to Australia.
In the US, a separate class motion lawsuit is shifting ahead towards Hayden Davis, the American investor and CEO of Kelsier Ventures, who has been accused of being the mastermind behind the venture.
Belief Erodes As Investigation Continues
Regardless of it being a 12 months since Libra launched, Milei has but to supply a coherent rationalization of his stage of involvement within the token venture.
In keeping with Agustín Rombolá, one of many legal professionals representing the complainants within the class motion, Milei’s solutions have assorted vastly over the previous 12 months.
“He first told us it was a casino, that you don’t cry in the casino. Then he told us that he had the right to sell his opinions. And then he told us that he was not working as the president at the moment of the tweet. [After that], he told us he was scammed,” Rombolá instructed BeInCrypto.
In keeping with Congressman Maximiliano Ferraro, one of the crucial outspoken critics within the Libra scandal, Milei has but to handle a key situation concerning his position within the case.
“There are still many questions unanswered. Who approached the President, and how did they give him that [smart contract address] that had more than 40 characters and did not have a public status?” Ferraro stated in an interview in Spanish.
Because the investigation into what occurred continues, the monetary injury remains to be being tallied, as is the lack of belief.
For Gamboa Silvestre and 1000’s of others, Libra was not only a failed funding however a turning level that reshaped their relationship with crypto altogether.
