Amid the Libra token controversy, Internet investigator Coffeezilla interviewed one of the people behind the Viva La Libertad project to discuss its disastrous launch and collapse, Argentina President Javier Milei’s involvement, and the “scam” allegations against the project.
Libra Creator Admits Sniper Allegations
On Monday, crypto sleuth Coffeezilla interviewed Hayden Davis, CEO of Kelsier Ventures, to discuss the Libra token’s disastrous rise and fall. According to the interview’s description, Davis is one of the “big four creators” of the project alongside Julian Peh, CEO of KIP Protocol, Mauricio Novelli, and Manuel Godoy from Tech Forum Argentina.
Davis, who claims to be the project’s “facilitator” and President Milei’s advisor, initially addressed the controversial launch on X, stating accountability and a structure to save the project was needed.
During the Coffeezilla interview, Davis discussed the team snipping the tokens allegations. He admitted that the project’s team sniped it at launch, alleging they did it to prevent other snipers from doing it.
So our goal was, can we take enough liquidity off to get all the snipers out, or at least control them so that when the chart dips down, it is not going to crush the whole project.
Kelsier’s CEO considers snipping isn’t bad if done by the teams, arguing that it is usually done “to protect” the project. He added, “If there’s enough volume, take some off so that people can have a chance to pump the chart back up,” as memecoins volatility can kill a project in a few days.
Davis also admitted to being part of the team that launched the US First Lady’s memecoin, MELANIA, nearly a month ago. According to him, that team also sniped the cryptocurrency at launch “because of how big the snipe was on TRUMP’s.” However, he alleges that the Melania token team did not swap the liquidity but sold liquidations.
A Crypto Scam Or A $100M ‘Plan Gone Wrong’?
The Libra token was launched on Friday and quickly gained attention after Argentina’s President endorsed it. In a now-deleted X post, President Milei shared the project and its Contact Address (CA), claiming Libras was a “private project dedicated to encouraging Argentina’s economic growth by funding small businesses and startups.”
After the post, the cryptocurrency’s valuation skyrocketed, surging to $4.56 and a $4.5 billion market capitalization shortly after launching. Nonetheless, the Libra dream quickly fell apart when the cryptocurrency crashed over 90% in the following hours and the Argentinian President deleted his post.
On-chain intelligence firm Lookonchain revealed that the crash was caused by at least eight insider wallets connected to the Libra team cashing out around $107 million. These wallets added and removed liquidity and claimed the fees, obtaining 57.6 million USDC and 249,671 SOL, worth around $49.7 million.
According to the decentralized exchange (DEX) Jupiter, the Milei-backed token was an “open secret in memecoin circles.” In a Sunday post, the exchange defended itself from insider trading allegations, arguing that part of their team, including their founder Meow, was aware in advance of the token’s imminent launch but “were completely unaware of the dealings between the principals (…) and were not involved in it in any way, shape or form.”
In the interview, Davis stated that investors are mad because they don’t have an advantage over others, like insiders: “All the bitching on socials is all the people that don’t get into the deals. You’ll never hear them bitch if they’re in the deal.”
The Libra token “facilitator” defended the project, claiming it is “not a rug, it’s a plan gone miserably wrong,” and over $100 million sitting in an account controlled by him. Davis explained he doesn’t wish to be the public enemy or keep the project’s money but considers it his “only leverage” against people potentially wanting to hurt him.
Ultimately, he claimed President Milei, who was recently accused of fraud over the Libra crypto launch, could address the project and his involvement as soon as today.
