gwolf (Slashdot reader #26,339) reports: On February 14, Libertarian President of Argentina, Javier Milei, unveiled the newly launched $LIBRA cryptocurrency, developed by the Viva la Libertad Project, which aligns closely with his political party, La Libertad Avanza. In a tweet, Milei stated, “This private initiative aims to foster the growth of the Argentinian economy by funding small startups and businesses. The global community wants to invest in Argentina!”

Notably, the project’s website was registered just three minutes before Milei’s tweet. The cryptocurrency rapidly achieved a market capitalization of $4.6 billion… only to suffer a staggering 89% loss in value soon after, as nine primary investors executed a heavily criticized exit strategy.

For further insights, visit the blog Web3 Is Going Just Great:

[W]ithin hours of the token’s launch, insiders began offloading their assets. The distribution of the token was heavily skewed, with approximately 82% held by a small number of addresses tied to insiders. These investors liquidated around $107 million, causing the token’s price to plummet by about 95%. Following this downturn, Milei deleted his initial tweet endorsing the coin and later stated that he was “unaware of the project’s specifics.”