Argentine Court Drops Criminal Case Against Milei Over LIBRA Memecoin

An Argentine federal judge has closed the criminal case against President Javier Milei over his promotion of the LIBRA memecoin. The ruling covers ten more people, and none of them was formally questioned by investigators. The token collapsed in February 2025, and investors lost more than $250 million.

Who was cleared and why

Judge Marcelo Martinez de Giorgi issued the ruling. The case was dropped for 11 people: Milei himself, his sister Karina (the presidency's secretary general), US businessman Hayden Davis, who described himself as an adviser to the token launch, lobbyist Mauricio Novelli and Julian Peh, CEO of KIP Protocol. Reuters and Infobae named the defendants.

The court followed prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, who had himself asked to end the proceedings. The argument is short: the conduct under review does not amount to a crime. In the judge's view Milei's post may have given the launch "greater impact", but a single post and the collapse that followed are not enough to prove fraud. That takes a specific deception, and there is no evidence of one.

The judge also found no confirmation that Karina Milei asked for or received money in exchange for access to the president. Nor were there traces of LIBRA proceeds reaching public officials. The Argentine fact-checking outlet Chequeado relayed these findings, citing court records.

From post to crash: LIBRA in numbers

Milei published the post on X on February 14, 2025. The token ran on the Solana blockchain, and the president promised the project would help fund small businesses in Argentina. The price shot up almost vertically and reached roughly $5.

Then came the crash. LIBRA lost more than 95% of its value from the peak, and CoinDesk puts total investor losses above $250 million. Milei later deleted the post and denied ties to the project.

Eight wallets and $99 million

The money raises the most questions. Blockchain researchers traced eight wallets linked to the token's creator and found withdrawals of about $99 million in crypto. For scale, that is around 40% of the estimated investor losses. Davis himself said after the crash that he held nearly $100 million, but did not admit wrongdoing.

In February 2025 CoinDesk obtained text messages in which Davis bragged that he had bought access to the president's inner circle, sent money to Karina Milei and could sway the head of state's decisions. He later denied any payments to either Milei or his sister. In the case file, the judge found no evidence of such payments.

Why fraud could not be proven

A price drop is not a crime in itself, and the court required evidence of a specific deception. Milei says he acted in good faith and withdrew his support once he learned more about the project. The president's office said the judge granted the prosecutor's request because the acts were not criminal, and called the probe an attempt to damage Milei's reputation. It was opened ahead of the 2025 midterm elections.

Legally, the ruling is narrow. It does not say LIBRA was an honest project. It says only that, under Argentine criminal law, no deception attributable to these 11 people was proven. The position of those who lost money is already weaker: in July the judge removed the investors from the case as plaintiffs.

Is this the final full stop

Prosecutor Taiano is not expected to appeal the dismissal. Another line remains open.

• Plaintiffs: in September an appeals court upheld their removal from the case.
• The investors challenged that decision before the Federal Criminal Cassation Court.
• If they are reinstated, they could appeal the dismissal.
• If the cassation court refuses, most likely nobody will be left to challenge it.

The bottom line in numbers

Eleven defendants without charges, more than $250 million in losses and $99 million withdrawn from eight wallets: the gap between the scale of the losses and the criminal outcome is plain. For the memecoin market the takeaway is simple: a politician's endorsement does not make a token safe. An investor is better off relying on liquidity and trading history, as with Bitcoin, than on promises from a single post. What happens next depends on the cassation court.