Argentine President Javier Milei is facing a corruption probe into his promotion of a meme coin, called LIBRA, whose price soared then quickly crashed after Milei posted about it on X. Milei has distanced himself from the meme coin and denied any wrongdoing.
But a large hack of a major cryptocurrency exchange -- one of the biggest thefts of all time -- and a major scandal involving the president of Argentina and a meme coin have highlighted some of the vulnerabilities in a relatively still nascent industry.
The price of bitcoin fell below $90,000 and other cryptocurrencies saw large drops Tuesday morning, erasing some of the gains digital assets have made since President Donald Trump took office on a pro-crypto agenda.
One of the crypto developers involved in the LIBRA coin said meme coins are essentially a rigged game that benefits a small group of people at the expense of retail investors in a recent interview with an independent journalist.
That developer, Hayden Davis, also revealed he was involved in the launch of First Lady Melania Trump’s meme coin just before her husband took office.
