LIBRA Memecoin Case Dismissed: What the Ruling Means for Us

The LIBRA memecoin case is closed, at least for now. On Friday, an Argentine federal judge dismissed the criminal case over President Javier Milei's February 2025 post promoting LIBRA, ruling that the events "do not fit any legal offense" for Milei and 10 others, according to The Block. I'm not here to tell you who's guilty. That's not my call, and the courts and Congress in Argentina don't agree with each other anyway. I'm writing about it because LIBRA is one of the biggest celebrity memecoin blowups the trenches have seen, and this ruling says something uncomfortable about who protects buyers when a famous name posts a contract address. Here's what the judge said, what's still open, and what I'm taking from it, with the sources so you can check me.

What happened with LIBRA in the first place?

On the evening of February 14, 2025, Milei posted about LIBRA on X. CoinDesk reports he said the Solana-based token would help fund small businesses in Argentina. It shot up, then fell apart within hours. The Block puts the peak market cap above $4.5 billion before a drop of about 95%, and says onchain analysts found eight wallets tied to the team cashed out $107 million. CoinDesk's numbers differ a little: it reports eight wallets linked to the token's creator withdrew around $99 million, with over $250 million in investor wealth destroyed. Different trackers, different totals, same picture.

Milei deleted the post, denied ties to the project and said he'd acted in good faith. Hayden Davis, the American who called himself LIBRA's "launch adviser," said he held close to $100 million after the crash but denied wrongdoing, per CoinDesk.

What did the judge actually rule?

Judge Marcelo Martínez de Giorgi's 60-page ruling cleared 11 people, including Milei, his sister Karina Milei (the presidency's secretary general), Davis, lobbyist Mauricio Novelli and Julian Peh of KIP Protocol. It followed a request from prosecutor Eduardo Taiano to drop the case. The Block notes that none of the 11 was ever called to give a formal statement as a suspect.

The core of it is one idea. The judge found the evidence didn't show "criminally relevant deception." He accepted that the president's office "could have conferred particular repercussion and visibility" on the token, but wrote that the notoriety of whoever promotes an asset and the publicity around a launch "do not, in themselves, amount to a fraudulent scheme." In plain words: a famous person hyping a coin that then crashes isn't automatically a crime. You need proof of a specific lie or a specific deal.

He also looked at the evidence people pointed to and found it didn't get there:

• The payment note. A note on Novelli's phone that, per El Destape's reporting, described three payments totaling $5 million. Forensics confirmed it existed in Apple Notes, but couldn't show it was ever sent to Davis or anyone else.
• Chats and calls. Investigators found deleted chats with a contact saved as "Karina Milei RRPP" and records of calls between Milei and Novelli, but couldn't determine what was said.
• Access to the president. The only paper trail between Karina Milei and Davis was her authorizing his entry to the Casa Rosada on July 16, 2024, which the judge said "considered in isolation, does not demonstrate the existence of an illicit agreement."

CoinDesk, citing Argentine fact-checker Chequeado, adds that the judge found no evidence Karina Milei sought or received money for access to the president, or that LIBRA proceeds reached public officials.

Why do so many people still call it a scam?

Because a different branch of government looked at the same story and came out somewhere else. In November 2025, an opposition-led investigative committee in Argentina's Chamber of Deputies released a 200-page report. The Block's coverage says it found Milei provided "essential collaboration" to the project and urged Congress to assess possible misconduct in office. It also pointed to KIP Protocol in December 2024 as a precedent, where it says a public validation from the president came shortly before liquidity pools were emptied.

El País reported the committee's figures: 114,410 wallets lost money, 498 of them more than $100,000, while 36 wallets each made more than $1 million. The report also said Milei's post included a contract address that wasn't publicly available yet, which it said strengthened the idea of a prior link with the creators. The Block notes the judge's ruling doesn't mention the commission's report at all.

So the reactions split exactly how you'd guess. Milei called it justice exposing a "political and media operation." Maximiliano Ferraro, who chaired the commission, called it "a clear planned judicial operation of cover-up and impunity." Opposition lawmakers have also questioned a July decree naming the judge's wife to a federal court, which The Block reports via Infobae. I'm not going to referee Argentine politics. I'll just say a criminal court not finding a crime and a political committee finding misconduct are two different questions with two different standards.

The line that should worry every buyer

For me the most important sentence isn't in Friday's ruling. It's from September. Back in July, the judge removed five investors who had joined the case as plaintiffs. On September 4, appeals judges upheld that, writing that LIBRA buyers "voluntarily assumed the risks inherent in that type of purchase."

Read that twice. By the committee's count, over a hundred thousand wallets lost money, and a court's view was that buying a memecoin is a risk you take on yourself. Honestly, it's not even a crazy legal idea. But it means the safety net people imagine, "if it's a scam, someone will make it right," mostly isn't there. Even when the person posting the address is a head of state.

What this means for the trenches

This is the part I actually care about, because it's the same game on every new chart, just with smaller names:

• A famous post is marketing, not a check. The judge said notoriety and publicity aren't fraud on their own. Flip that around: they aren't proof of anything good either. Who posted it tells you nothing about who holds the supply.
• Look at the wallets, not the face. LIBRA's story, as onchain analysts tell it, is eight wallets cashing out while everyone else held the bag. Before you size in on anything, check how concentrated the holders are and who controls the liquidity.
• Assume nobody is coming to save you. "Voluntarily assumed the risks" is how a court saw it. Only put in what you'd be fine losing, size small, and don't count on a lawsuit as a backstop.
• Speed is the trap. LIBRA went from launch to collapse in hours. If the plan is to move faster than the insiders, you're probably the exit liquidity.

And for me as a builder, it's a reminder of why I do launches the slow, boring way. No borrowed fame, no surprise addresses, everything out in the open first on the launches page. If I ever drop a coin, you'll see what it is before anyone shills it.

What this doesn't settle

This ruling covers Argentina's criminal case and nothing else. It isn't a finding that LIBRA was fair, and it doesn't explain where the money went. It's also not fully final. Taiano isn't expected to appeal, and no private plaintiffs remain, but both The Block and CoinDesk report the removed investors have asked the Federal Criminal Cassation Court to put them back in the case. If it does, they could appeal the dismissal. I don't know how that court will rule, and I'm not going to guess.

What I'm watching next

The Cassation Court decision on those investors is the big one. After that, whether Congress does anything with the commission's misconduct recommendation. If you want the other side of the "who can change the rules" question, my piece on why 22 companies blocked their tokenized stocks is about consent before a launch, which is exactly what LIBRA buyers never got. For the long view on getting money back after a crypto blowup, read what Mt. Gox still teaches. Big updates land on the live crypto news page, and the Legion roadmap shows what I'm building. New here? Start with why I built this home base.

The takeaway: a famous name pushing a coin isn't a crime by itself, and it isn't a safety check either. The only protection that reliably shows up is the homework you do before you buy. Would a post from a president have stopped you from checking the wallets?

Still building. Still here. 🫡