Buenos Aires Herald 
President Javier Milei spoke for the first time since the crypto scandal broke on Friday. He denied being involved in the $LIBRA cryptocurrency project and attempted to shift blame on to investors. He compared the risks of investing in it to “playing Russian roulette and getting the bullet,” adding that he didn’t endorse the initiative, but merely “shared it.”
“All of those who got in on it knew very well what they were getting into. They knew the risks very well,” Milei told news channel TN in a recorded interview that aired on Monday night. “They did it voluntarily.”
On Friday evening, Milei posted on social media supporting a cryptocurrency known as $LIBRA, which was linked to a private project called Viva La Libertad (Long Live Freedom) supposedly intended to finance small Argentine companies. The price of a $LIBRA token spiked after the post, only to crumble hours later. The president, who eventually deleted his posts, is now facing several impeachment requests.
“I don’t have anything to hide, I didn’t do anything wrong. I am super enthusiastic about technology, and after seeing that this [financial] instrument could fund entrepreneurs’ projects, yes, I shared it,” Milei said in the interview.
He also denied initial estimates that 44,000 people were affected by the scam, because “many of those were bots.” “It was 5,000 people, at best,” he claimed. The president said that the chances of any of them being Argentine were “very, very remote,” adding that the affected were investors “hyper-specialized in these kinds of instruments.”
“This is an issue between private parties, because the state is not playing any role here, let’s make that clear,” he added.
Milei also explained why he pinned his initial post promoting the investment before deleting it. “Someone said my account had been hacked. That’s a lie. So I pinned the tweet to show it was effectively me who made it,” he explained. “I started seeing many negative comments, so, because I had doubts, I deleted the tweet.”
Milei said Hayden Mark Davis, the creator of the cryptocurrency project, told him about it after the pair met at a technology event last year. “I thought it was very interesting,” Milei said, adding that “the judiciary will have to determine” if Davis is a scammer.
The president denied having made any mistakes because he acted “in good faith,” but admitted he needs to be more careful. “I think I have something to learn from this. I became president and continued being the same old Javier Milei. From now on, I will have to build up walls and filters [around me].”
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