Recovered Notes Reveal $5M Payment Structure Linking Argentina's Milei to Libra Crypto Promotion
A forensic analysis of a crypto lobbyist’s phone has uncovered what might be the smoking gun in Argentina’s biggest political scandal of 2025: a document outlining a $5 million payment structure directly tied to President Javier Milei’s promotion of the Libra memecoin.
The Document on the Phone
The file, dated February 11, 2025 — just three days before Milei’s now-deleted tweet promoting the Solana-based memecoin — was recovered from crypto lobbyist Mauricio Novelli’s phone during a federal investigation. It begins with the words: “Hello friends, this is the final agreement discussed with H,” believed to refer to Hayden Davis, CEO of Kelsier Ventures.
The Three-Part Payment Structure
The document lays out a remarkably specific payment plan:
- $1.5 million in liquid tokens or cash as an advance payment
- $1.5 million in liquid tokens or cash upon Milei announcing on Twitter that his advisor is Hayden Davis/Kelsier/the Davis family
- $2 million in tokens or cash upon signing a contract in person with Milei for blockchain/AI consulting for the Argentine government
The total: $5 million for what amounts to a sitting president shilling a cryptocurrency to his millions of followers.
What Happened After the Tweet
On February 14, 2025, Milei posted about the Libra token to his millions of followers. The token briefly surged before crashing, wiping out countless retail investors. Milei deleted the tweet, but the damage was done — and the investigations began.
A federal criminal investigation in Argentina and a class action lawsuit in the United States are both ongoing. Argentina’s Anti-Corruption Office cleared Milei of violating public ethics rules in June 2025, concluding his post was “personal rather than official” — a distinction that satisfies exactly nobody.
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t just about one president and one memecoin. The Libra scandal has become a case study in how crypto’s lack of regulation creates perfect conditions for political corruption. When a sitting president can allegedly be paid $5 million to tweet about a token that he knows will crash, something is fundamentally broken.
The forensic evidence from Novelli’s phone adds concrete documentary evidence to what was previously circumstantial. It transforms the narrative from “politician made a bad social media post” to “politician allegedly accepted a structured bribe to pump a cryptocurrency.”
The Bottom Line
The recovered notes turn the Libra scandal from political embarrassment into potential criminal evidence. A sitting president, a $5 million payment plan, a deleted tweet, and millions in retail investor losses. If this doesn’t finally push regulators to act on crypto’s political corruption problem, nothing will.