The Milei crypto case is over — at least in court. An Argentine federal judge has dismissed the criminal investigation into President Javier Milei and his sister Karina Milei over the $LIBRA memecoin scandal that shook Argentina in February 2025, ruling that the events under investigation did not constitute a criminal offence. The decision, issued on Friday and trending per news coverage worldwide this weekend, closes one of the most politically explosive chapters of Milei's presidency — though it will not return a cent to the investors who lost money.
Judge Marcelo Martinez de Giorgi found no evidence of fraud in how Milei promoted the token on social media, even while acknowledging that the president's "institutional standing" likely amplified the launch. Prosecutor Eduardo Taiano had already asked for the Milei crypto case's dismissal before the judge ruled. The investigation into US businessman Hayden Davis, who described himself as a "launch adviser" for the token and has acknowledged holding nearly $100 million after the crash, was also dropped.
What the judge decided in the Milei crypto case
According to court records reported by La Nación, Judge Martinez de Giorgi's ruling centered on a simple legal conclusion: investor losses and wild price swings are not, by themselves, proof of a crime. The reported events, he wrote, "do not constitute a criminal offence."
Crucially, the judge found that Milei's February 2025 post on X recommending $LIBRA — while it may have had "greater impact" because it came from a sitting president — did not amount to a fraudulent scheme. Under Argentine law, establishing fraud requires evidence of a deceptive act that induced investors to buy. The collapse of a speculative token's price alone, however brutal, was not enough.
The ruling also cleared Karina Milei, the president's sister and chief of staff, finding no evidence that she received payments to arrange meetings between the president and businesspeople connected to the project. Investigations into other figures named in the probe, including Mauricio Novelli and Manuel Terrones Godoy, were dismissed as well.
How the $LIBRA scandal unfolded: the February 2025 timeline
The roots of the Milei crypto case go back to the evening of Friday, February 14, 2025. At 7:01 pm Argentina time — just three minutes after the token's creation — President Milei posted on X, Instagram and Facebook promoting $LIBRA as a private initiative to stimulate Argentina's economy by funding small businesses and startups. The post included the token's blockchain contract address.
What happened next was one of the most violent pump-and-dump episodes in crypto history. $LIBRA surged from roughly $0.000001 to $5.20 within 40 minutes. The token's market capitalization briefly touched $4.6 billion. But the nine founding wallets held about 70% of the total supply, and within hours they sold — the price cratered 85%, falling to about $0.99 by the next day and leaving the market cap at roughly $162 million.
Within three hours of launch, the founding accounts had extracted approximately $87 million at the expense of an estimated 74,000 investors. Those chaotic hours are the entire factual basis of the Milei crypto case. Milei deleted his post and denied any connection to the project, saying he had acted "in good faith" and did not know the details of the project when he promoted it. "I was not aware of the details of the project and once I found out, I decided to not continue giving it publicity," he said. Argentina's fintech chamber warned at the time that the episode bore the hallmarks of a "rug pull" — a scam in which token developers attract legitimate investment, pump the value, and then dump their stake.
Who profited and what investors lost
Blockchain researchers traced around $99 million withdrawn from the token's liquidity pools through eight digital wallets linked to its creator. Hayden Davis, the American entrepreneur who called himself a launch adviser for the token, has acknowledged holding close to $100 million after the crash — though he denies any wrongdoing. Davis has been described by on-chain analysts as the suspected architect of several pump-and-dump-style launches, and the $LIBRA website was registered the very same day it launched.
For ordinary investors caught up in the Milei crypto case, the story was the inverse. Investors are estimated to have lost more than $200 million in total. On-chain analysis showed that of 15,431 wallets with gains or losses exceeding $1,000, just 2,101 secured a total of $180 million in realized profits — while the overwhelming majority absorbed heavy losses. Even celebrity trader Dave Portnoy lost millions, though he later received a $5 million refund from the exchange, raising questions about fairness.
The Milei crypto case became a test of whether endorsement alone could support fraud charges — a question with growing relevance as crypto markets mature and regulators worldwide tighten their grip. For context on how crypto enforcement and markets have evolved, see our coverage of Bitcoin's 2026 rally and China's pursuit of billions in seized Bitcoin in a separate fraud case.
Political reaction in Argentina
Milei, 56, welcomed the decision as vindication. He said the ruling exposed an "enormous political and media operation" aimed solely at undermining his presidency for political and what he called "coup-mongering" reasons. Argentina's presidential office posted on X that the president had been investigated "with complete freedom" and that the result was "absolute proof of his innocence," demanding accountability for what it described as a failed attempt at an institutional coup that wasted taxpayers' money.
The opposition rejected that framing outright — and the Milei crypto case is far from over politically. The left-wing Peronist youth organization La Cámpora wrote on X that "there is no justice in our country. The judiciary is controlled by a mafia serving those in power." Opposition politicians had previously floated impeachment proceedings over the scandal, and the dismissal is unlikely to end the political fight — it merely moves it from the courtroom to the campaign trail.
The ruling lands at a delicate moment for Argentina, whose government has been pursuing an aggressive international agenda. Milei's administration has also taken its battles abroad, including Argentina's maritime tribunal filing against the Falklands oil project. Whether the court's clearance helps or hurts his standing at home remains the open question.
What comes next after the Milei crypto case dismissal
Legally, the Milei crypto case is now closed at the federal criminal level. But several things remain unresolved. First, the dismissal does not reverse investors' losses — the $200 million-plus that vanished in the crash is gone, and no restitution mechanism was part of the ruling. Second, the judge's standard — that price collapse alone does not equal fraud — sets a notable precedent for how Argentine courts will treat memecoin endorsements going forward, including any future social-media promotion by public officials.
Third, the political aftershocks continue. Opposition lawmakers are already questioning the independence of the judiciary, and the scandal remains ammunition for Milei's critics. The president himself is demanding an accounting of the investigation, asking on record who will take responsibility for "having wasted Argentine taxpayers' money and the President of the Nation's time."
For the crypto industry, the episode is a reminder that 2026's more regulated market still carries the risks of its wilder years. Regulators in Australia are building new crypto tax reporting rules, and the Milei case shows that enforcement — and the limits of what courts will call fraud — is still being defined coin by coin, country by country.
Bottom line: the Milei crypto case ended with a judicial shrug, not a conviction. The court found no crime in a president posting about a token that made insiders rich and destroyed $200 million of investors' savings. Whether history judges the episode the same way the judge did is another matter entirely.