Argentine president’s promotion of crypto rocks his presidency

livemint.com:

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Argentine President Javier Milei has been on the defensive after a cryptocurrency he endorsed on X saw its value crash, triggering fraud allegations and calls for impeachment by his political foes. The scandal is hitting the libertarian leader ahead of his trip Thursday to Washington to meet with Trump administration officials to win support for his economic reforms, including approval for an International Monetary Fund loan.

A darling of the global conservative movement and ally of President Trump, Milei has described the fallout as “a slap in the face" against him and asserted he hadn’t championed the cryptocurrency. But he has spent the last few days deflecting blame for the crypto fiasco and ordered the Anti-Corruption Office run out of the Justice Ministry to probe what happened. “I did not promote it," he said to Argentine TV channel Todo Noticias on Monday.

“What I did was I shared it. It’s not the same." A federal judge, María Servini, was assigned to investigate the scam and the president’s role in promoting the coin after more than 110 Argentines filed complaints with the judiciary saying that they lost their investments. The crisis began Friday when Milei, who frequently fires off missives on X, posted about an investment opportunity involving a memecoin called $LIBRA, which he described as a private project working to encourage growth of small Argentine businesses and startups.

“The world wants to invest in Argentina," Milei said in the now-deleted post. The coin saw its value surge before collapsing within hours, wiping away more than $4 billion in value. Investors believed they were duped into a “rug pull," crypto-world speak for a scam in which a coin is promoted to draw