- President of Argentina backs Viva La Libertad project and its cryptocurrency $LIBRA.
- Coin issued by company behind similar pump-and-dump issues, including $MELANIA.
- Kelsier Ventures have a track record of blockchain investment schemes.
If presidential approval of a cryptocurrency were a virus, it seems to have spread from North to South America. President of Argentina, Javier Milei posted his approval of $LIBRA on the social media site formerly known as Twitter, supporting the Viva La Libertad Project and one of its funding sources, the $LIBRA cryptocurrency.
In the space of a few hours, the token rose in price from a few cents to nearly $5,000, and then promptly collapsed, leaving many investors with huge losses.
According to the Rio Times, blockchain analysts found that 82% of $LIBRA’s supply was controlled by a small number of digital wallets, with $107 million in $LIBRA sold around the time the cryptocurrency peaked, and precipitating the crash in value.
Nearly $4.4 billion in virtual value was lost, mostly by investors who bought into the scheme as the price rose.
The Viva La Libertad Project lets any Argentine with a business or educational venture apply for funding, but its philanthropic nature is questionable. The company behind Viva La Libertad is the KIP Network, a private company based in Panama.
According to the company’s website, it launched the $LIBRA token “as a symbol of this movement and in honor of Javier Milei’s libertarian ideas.”
The President deleted his original social media post some hours after the price crash, and has denied any involvement in the token, other than to lend his support to the Project, which he then withdrew after learning more details about what to industry observers appears to have been a common-or-garden ‘pump and dump’ cryptocurrency scheme.
Opposition politicians in the country have called for the impeachment of the President.
KIP and Kelsier
The KIP Network is the company behind the KIP Protocol, which describes itself as ‘a web 3 framework enabling decentralised Knowledge Assets for AI applications.’
Posting on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, KIP Protocol said, “The token launch and market making were fully handled by @KelsierVentures, represented by Hayden Davis, the initiators of the project. None of the wallets belonged to KIP or myself.”
Kelsier Ventures presents itself as a venture capital firm specialising in web 3 technologies. It is run by the Davis family, which has personal connections with both Donald and Melania Trump. Kelsier Ventures issued the $MELANIA coin, a similar pump-and-dump scheme that made the Trump family undisclosed profits after enthusiastic backing of the cryptocurrencies by MAGA supporters.
Hayden Davis of Kelsier Ventures has been photographed with President Milei, and is one of the founders of the company, along with Thomas and Gideon Davis, his father and brother, respectively.
The family’s matriarch, Emily Chynoweth Davis wrote in her blog that the family members are “ever learning that we have permission to fail, learn and thrive — values that bind our family tight like wolves.” She also describes the roots of the family as “American, Mexican, Irish, [and] Welch” (sic).
In addition to various cryptocurrency speculations and coin launches, the family has also issued assets of unclear long-term value in the shape of NFTs.
The Argentinian president has been criticised for associating himself with the $LIBRA coin, and has expressed regret over his involvement. Yet Mr and Mrs Trump to the country’s far North have no such misgivings: Both $TRUMP and $MELANIA made their investors tidy sums.
