Original | Odaily
Author | jk
This morning around 6 am Beijing time, Argentine President Javier Milei posted a tweet on his official X account that shook the market: He announced the launch of the Meme coin Libra and released the related smart contract address.
As soon as the news was released, the market reactions were very diverse, with some people thinking the Argentine president's account had been hacked, and some Meme players directly rushing into the market (the old players have been fully educated, the authenticity doesn't matter). Odaily previously reported that the LIBRA price briefly broke through $7.8, with a total market value reaching $3.5 billion at one point. Soon, Milei's Instagram account also posted a screenshot of the same tweet, quickly dispelling the idea of a hacked account (because the possibility of both the Instagram and X platform accounts being hacked at the same time is very low), further intensifying the market's focus on Milei's coin issuance event.
But the subsequent market trend slapped all investors in the face. Unlike the slightly longer upward cycle of Trump Coin and Melania Coin, Libra took the classic path of harvesting the "leeks". After rising to over $4, Libra began to plummet like a waterfall: from $4 all the way down to around $2, then briefly touching a platform around $1, and finally falling to the current level of around $0.16. It can be said that Libra is now completely cooled down.
Subsequently, the president himself also deleted that tweet and claimed to be "not too familiar" with the project.
Libra's trend, source: GeckoTerminal
What is Libra for?
According to the president's tweet a few hours ago, the project (Project Viva La Libertad) associated with Libra is mainly aimed at promoting the Argentine economy by funding small projects and local businesses, supporting those seeking to develop enterprises and contribute to the country's development. On the website of the project, it also shows that any private enterprise in Argentina can apply for investment by filling out a form.
At the bottom of the website, there is a small line stating that the project is a private project, developed by Kip Protocol. Subsequently, Kip Protocol also emphasized that the LIBRA token is part of the "Viva la Libertad" project, and the project is fully operated by private enterprises, with Argentine President Milei not involved in the development.
Who is profiting?
And with investors being "harvested", there must be those who are profiting. Who is profiting? The data points to the behind-the-scenes team and early snipers. According to the blockchain analysis platform LookOnChain, 8 wallets related to the LIBRA team have cumulatively cashed out 5.76 million USDC and 249,671 SOL (about $49.7 million) through measures such as increasing liquidity, removing liquidity, and collecting transaction fees, totaling $107 million.
As for the early snipers and insider trading, according to the on-chain data analyst Yujin, the insiders of LIBRA have made at least $20.18 million in profits through LIBRA. This address operated through exchanges like Binance, Bybit, and Kucoin to withdraw USDC and SOL to prepare funds a few hours before the president's tweet was posted; they sniped and bought in the first second after the Argentine president's tweet was released; and then sold out in batches after the market had pushed up LIBRA. At least 3 addresses had consistent operations.
So, the investors' anger is currently mostly directed at Kip Protocol; no wonder they posted a post on the X platform saying "Libra is a success".
Tweet, source: Kip Protocol X
It is still unclear whether the team behind Libra is solely Kip Protocol. Meanwhile, some netizens have dug out that Kip Protocol may also have some connection with Animoca, but Animoca immediately came out to clarify that it is not related to the issuance of Libra tokens.
At the same time, some community members pointed out that the reason a large number of investors rushed in at the first time was because the Libra token address could be searched on Moonshot. But this was actually a blunder; unlike Trump's token, which was actually officially certified and searchable for purchase, the LIBRA token was not officially certified by the Moonshot platform, but was displayed using the platform's latest "token registration function". The Moonshot platform allows users to search for projects by contract address, but does not verify them, and has a risk warning on the page. If you only search for the name Libra, you won't find it.
Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the violent market fluctuations, Solayer team member Chaofan Shou posted on the X platform that he and the team engineer @tonykebot had lost more than $2 million in LIBRA trading, and attached the list of KIP Protocol core members, hinting that they might take action. Shou also captioned: "Let's see what two hackers and an idle weekend can bring us."
