As Javier Milei’s meme coin endorsement continues to drive controversy and confusion, a little-known entrepreneur advising the Argentine president on crypto matters said he’s been left holding a $100 million bag—and might be in danger.
Hayden Davis, the 28-year-old CEO of crypto marketing services and investment firm Kelsier, has emerged as one of the most prominent faces attached to the launch of the Solana-based token LIBRA.
After surging to a $4 billion market cap, the token’s value swiftly collapsed on Friday, leaving some investors with crushing losses after Milei promoted the token.
In a now-deleted post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Milei declared that LIBRA was “dedicated to encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy.”
Milei has since distanced himself from the project, denying any knowledge of how LIBRA was concocted while Argentine lawyers pursue fraud complaints, per the Associated Press.
LIBRA’s launch has been mired in accusations of market manipulation and insider selling. While unclear what legal repercussions Milei or Davis may ultimately face, the crypto entrepreneur has tried to clarify that he never planned to abscond with $100 million.
On Monday, Davis told Barstool Sports founder and meme coin tastemaker Dave Portnoy that extracting value from Libra’s launch was a behind-the-scenes, necessary evil in order to ensure the token’s longevity. Davis admitted that LIBRA was “sniped” by its developers to beat other traders to the token and prevent them from collapsing the meme coin’s price.
Rather than running off with ill-gotten gains, the funds skimmed off of LIBRA’s launch were going to be “injected” back into LIBRA, according to Portnoy’s recollection of a previous conversation with Davis. However, the signal that Davis was waiting for supposedly never came.
“I was instructed, ‘Hey, don’t inject anything back in until Milei’s second video,’” Davis said.
When pressed for an answer about who the funds belong to, which Davis made clear that does not want, he stammered and said the digital assets most likely belong “to Argentina.”
On Friday, the on-chain analytics firm Bubblemaps flagged five digital wallets containing $87 million worth of Solana and USDC. In a post on X, the firm said the funds came from developers “removing USDC and SOL from liquidity pools” that enable LIBRA to trade.
As of this writing, three wallets still contained $82.9 million worth of USDC and Solana. One wallet that had received $881,500 worth of USDC had been emptied, along with another wallet that had received $891,500 in USDC, Solscan data shows.
Bubblemaps also identified an associated digital wallet that “sniped” LIBRA for a $6 million profit on X, meaning tools were used to flip the token for a quick buck moments after it launched and as investors rushed in alongside the Argentine president’s now-deleted post.
When it became clear that Milei’s second post on LIBRA would never come, Davis told Portnoy his team debated on injecting the $100 million back into LIBRA then. But at the end of the day, after much internal debate, Davis said he abided by instructions to hold off.
In an interview published on Sunday, Davis told YouTuber Stephen Findeisen, better known as Coffeezilla, that he fears his life has fallen into danger, becoming the focal point of a multi-billion dollar political drama playing out in real time.
“It’s not a rug,” Davis said. “It’s a plan gone miserably wrong with $100 million sitting in the account that I’m a custodian of.”
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