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Javier Milei finally broke his silence on the LIBRA meme coin collapse, an incident that wiped out $4.6 billion, brought international lawsuits, and triggered impeachment calls in Argentina.

Speaking in an interview with Todo Noticias, Javier denied responsibility, downplayed the losses, and blamed investors for failing to understand volatility trading. He said, “Hayden Davis proposed creating a structure to finance entrepreneurs who, due to informality, lack funding options. When Libra became public, I helped spread the word.”

“I’m not an expert. My specialty is economic growth, with or without money,” Javier added. “I saw a tool that could finance entrepreneurs, and I spread the word. I acted in good faith and took a hit.”

Javier Milei dismisses investor losses

Javier confirmed he had met with the people behind LIBRA, but reiterated once again that he wasn’t promoting the coin—just sharing information about it.

“Did the state lose money? No. Did Argentinians lose money? Maybe four or five people at most. The vast majority of investors are Chinese and American,” he said. “It’s false that 44,000 people were affected—at most, 5,000. These are traders who knew the risks.”

Javier described LIBRA’s investors as experienced volatility traders, not ordinary citizens.

He also defended his X post that sent LIBRA’s price surging, saying it came just three minutes after the coin launched simply because he was passionate about the idea. Believable right?

“I didn’t promote it, I shared it. I did it because I’m a die-hard technoptimist. Any initiative that improves financing for tech entrepreneurs interests me. I made no mistakes because I acted in good faith. But when I look at the political repercussions, I realize I have something to learn,” Javier said, adding that:

“I need to understand that after becoming president, I continued acting like the same Javier Milei as before. Unfortunately, this situation shows me that I need to raise my filters and not make myself so accessible.”

LIBRA crashes, markets react, government scrambles

On Friday night, Javier’s X post directed millions of followers to LIBRA, pushing its market cap to $4.6 billion. Hours later, it collapsed to $600,000, so investors lost billions like it’s nothing. Javier then quickly deleted the post and said he made it by mistake, but oh folks were pissed.

Then the Argentine government said it was launching an internal investigation, while opposition leaders seized the opportunity to attack Javier. Some called for impeachment, saying his actions damaged Argentina’s credibility, though according to Argentinian laws, the chances of an impeachment succeeding are slim, because it would require a two-thirds majority in Congress.

Luis Caputo, Argentina’s Economy Minister, became the first government official to address the scandal. Speaking on Monday night, Caputo defended Javier, saying, “This was an unforced error about a niche topic. Javier had no ill intentions.”

He also downplayed LIBRA’s broader economic impact, telling the public, “Cryptocurrencies are an infinitesimal world. A world of specialists that’s very hard to understand.”

Still, markets reacted. On Monday, investors dumped Argentine stocks, sending the S&P Merval Index down 5.6%, its biggest drop since July. With US bond and equity markets closed, the full downfall is still uncertain.

Hayden Davis claims Milei’s team was involved

As the government scrambled to contain the damage, Hayden Davis, CEO of Kelsier Ventures, went public. Speaking in a live interview with Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, Hayden said Javier’s team was directly involved in LIBRA’s launch.

“This was coordinated with Javier and members of his team,” Hayden said, though he refused to name names.

Dave, who personally lost money, called LIBRA “the biggest rug pull of all time.”

Hayden refunded Dave’s losses, but said thousands of investors were left empty-handed.

“I firmly believe Javier isn’t corrupt,” Hayden said. “I don’t think he even knows what’s going on. But the people around him? That’s another story.”

Hayden also claimed to be fearing for his life, fueling speculation that LIBRA’s collapse was part of a larger scheme. Before his chat with Dave, Hayden had appeared in an interview with investigator Coffeezilla where he admitted to insider trading, market manipulation, and colluding with powerful political figures, among other things.

Meanwhile, Burwick Law, a firm in New York, announced it was helping hundreds of clients recover losses from LIBRA, and Moyano & Asociados, an Argentine law firm, said filed a complaint with the US SEC on Monday. At the same time, an Argentine judge was assigned to more than 100 legal cases tied to LIBRA’s crash. As pressure mounted, Javier’s team tried to move attention to Argentina’s January budget surplus. On Monday, he met with Montana Senator Steve Daines, posing with a chainsaw to represent his spending cuts, which was the inspiration for the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E).

On social media, Javier reshared a post from US president Donald Trump, featuring his own quote and photo. On Wednesday night, Javier plans to fly to Washington to meet Trump with an agenda to secure US support for a new IMF program and push for tariff exemptions.

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U.Today presents the top three crypto news stories over the past weekend.

SEC sent "enormous message" about XRP

On Thursday, Feb. 13,the SEC officiallyacknowledged Grayscale's application to convert its XRP trust into an ETF. While this acknowledgment does not guarantee approval, it signifies a major milestone for the asset. Nate Geraci, leading ETF analyst, described the SEC's move as an "enormous message" in hisX post. Currently, the regulator is engaged in litigation with Ripple, the company linked to the XRP token, and recently filed an appeal in the ongoing case. As reported by U.Today, Grayscale launched its XRP trust in September, then it applied to convert the first into an ETF in January. According to Geraci, the SEC could reject the XRP filing but chose to acknowledge it instead.

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$1.04 billion Bitcoin stun crypto exchanges, What's happening?

According to data provided by IntoTheBlock, last week, Bitcoin experienceda significant shift, with $1.04 billion in net inflows to exchanges. As seen in the platform'sX post, Bitcoin's total fees decreased 10.74% to $3.2 million, while $1.04 billion accounted for exchange flows, with $1.3 billion marking inflows. This influx indicates a potential increase in selling pressure, as traders move assets to exchanges for selling purposes amid ongoing market hesitancy due to macroeconomic uncertainties. The reversal from previous outflows sparked speculation about a possible price shift for Bitcoin, which has seen little movement in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Bitcoin sees an increase in institutional interest; according to CNBC, video-game-retailer-turned-meme-stock GameStop is considering investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

58,303,050 SHIB coins burned over week

As stated in Shibburn's recentX post from Saturday, Feb. 15, in the past week, the SHIB community successfully burnedover 58 million SHIB coins. This development took place despite a 20.77% decrease in the burn rate compared to the previous week. When it comes to the daily burn rate on Feb. 15, it saw a major decline of 95.02%, with only 708,198 SHIB coins burned on that day. However, there was a notable spike in the burn rate on Friday, with over 14 million SHIB removed from circulation, including a single transfer of 13 million coins. As of now, since 2021, the total amount of burned SHIB coins has reached a whopping 410,744,432,366,375.

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