Argentine chief of staff Guillermo Francos denied President Javier Milei’s participation in the $LIBRA cryptocurrency scandal while testifying in Congress on Tuesday. 

Francos said that the failed token launch, which ended with thousands of investors losing millions of dollars and lawsuits in local and foreign courts, was not a government act. “The President did not maintain nor does he maintain a link with the ‘Viva la Libertad’ project or the $LIBRA currency,” he said. He insisted that the $LIBRA launch was related “to strictly personal aspects of the president of the nation” since he was at the Olivos presidential residence at the time of the post.

On February 14, Milei spread news of the launch of a new cryptocurrency called $LIBRA on social media, together with a contract to buy it. It claimed to be part of a project called “Viva La Libertad” that was supposed to get credits for Argentine businesses. The price of the token initially soared before tanking within hours. Milei deleted his original posts around five hours after making them. Over 75,000 retail investors lost an estimated US$280 million in the wake of what experts consulted by the Herald called a ‘rug-pull’ scam. 

Milei had previously held meetings with people involved in $LIBRA’s launch, including businessmen from the U.S., Singapore, and Argentina. The case is now being investigated in local and foreign courts.

In the following days, Hayden Mark Davis, the owner of the Delaware-registered Kelsier who launched the $LIBRA coin, stated he had been “working as an advisor” to Milei’s administration. 

Francos, denied this and said “at no time has there ever been a connection between Mr. Davis and any public official.” However, he later admitted that there was a link and instead accused a lawmaker of “twisting” his words.

During the chief of staff’s testimony, Unión por la Patria lawmaker Itai Hagman asked Francos if $LIBRA was created by the president, since he was the first person on social media to post about the project. “He took public information,” he said. “You think that information was not public. Well, that’s your opinion. The president said it was public information.” 

When asked by lawmaker Juan Marino whether he could commit to disclosing next week whether the information about $LIBRA was posted before Milei’s social media involvement, Francos said he would not. “No, I cannot commit because I don’t know where it was,” he said.

“There was no coordination or intervention in the aforementioned project. Nor were any directives given to government officials to disseminate the project,” he said. 

A source in the cryptocurrency sector told the Herald that people in the National Security Commission (CNV) — the Argentine equivalent of the United States’ Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) — invited people to Tech Forum Buenos Aires, where Milei and other people in connection with $LIBRA met in October 2024. An advisor working at the CNV resigned in March, three weeks after a prosecutor started investigating him over a potential role in the $LIBRA crypto scandal.

“The state has had no interference or benefit” from the project, according to Francos, who added that Milei “so far does not consider this to be a scam.”