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What happened today?

If you thought Trump’s memecoin was the first and last time we’d see a president launch a coin, you’d be woefully mistaken. About 24 hours ago, president Javier Milei of Argentina announced via tweet the launch of a new coin called “Libra” which purported to be designed to help small businesses in Argentina find funding. This may sound absurd, but it’s really just the beginning. Massive snipers rocked the launch of the coin, securing a large amount of supply due to inside knowledge which they then dumped on unsuspecting traders. On top of the 10’s of millions of dollars extracted by these bad actors, the project itself generated over $100M in fees and via the single-sided liquidity pool the team set up, making the only true winners here the team and insiders.

In a twist, the main man behind the launch of Libra decided to record an hour long interview with popular Youtuber CoffeeZilla late last night, during which he admitted to committing numerous financial crimes including sniping his own launch to then manipulate prices, as well as being involved with the Melania memecoin launch from a few weeks ago. The rabbit hole here keeps getting deeper with many popular figures from the Solana ecosystem potentially involved, and we’re finding out more by the hour.

It’s been a while since Crypto Twitter (CT) engaged in a witch hunt to this degree, but it seems the KOL’s and nefarious coin teams have finally pushed it too far. It’ll be interesting to see the fallout of this event as while we’ve dealt with far larger disasters in terms of financial extraction, people generally know the memecoin game is rigged now. The allure of memecoins in the first place, not unlike investing in general, is that a good trader with a bit of luck can get rich — in other words, a fair playing field where risk can be properly rewarded. People may have known that influencers had an edge before, but now they know just how much of a disadvantage they are at.

Trading Talk

Most of the mindshare over the last few days has been around Libra of course, so let’s look at some of the potential implications. The big outperformer of the cycle so far has been Solana, mainly driven by the memecoin craze which has brought millions of new users on chain. I think this is objectively a good thing, however memecoins are by definition the most volatile of any crypto asset class, and that means they’re not always the focus of the market. For the last 6-12 months they have dominated trading volume consistently, but it feels like off the back of the hugely extractive launches recently, attention and interests are shifting.

Given Solana’s poor performance today (and ETH’s relative strength), it seems the market agrees here. If a significant amount of SOL’s price appreciation could be attributed to memecoin activity, it makes sense that a shift in market focus to sectors like RWA’s and DeFi would have a negative impact on the price of SOL. As we’ve talked about in previous Beluga Brief editions the vast majority of these kinds of protocols are built on Ethereum or one if its L2’s, so if we’re right this should provide an outsized benefit to the price of ETH. Recent news also indicated that ETF issuers are once again attempting to integrate staking into the ETH ETF’s, which would be an additional positive catalyst.

Tweet of the Day

Someone burned $1.38M today because of brain chips and it wasn’t even the craziest thing to happen in the last 24 hours.

Biggest Headlines

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• Ether rally turns into crypto market slide with Bitcoin slipping below $96k

• Bitcoin dominance nears multi-year high amid Libra memecoin collapse

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Argentina stock market tanks following Milei memecoin mess

Regulatory

• India’s Directorate of Enforcement seizes $190M in BitConnect fraud case

New Launches

•  Brevan Howard Digital deploys $20M on Ethereum-based Kinto in Institutional DeFi push

Memecoins

• Dave Portnoy mistkaenly buys $170,000 of wrong LIBRA token, pumping it over 3,000%

• Milei’s memecoin Advisor says he’s sitting on $100M and doesn’t know what to do with it

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Recent Beluga Content

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. While Beluga strives to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information, there may be discrepancies when comparing our data to that of financial institutions, service providers, or specific product websites. Always consult with a professional before making any financial decisions.

Will McKinnon is the Head of Content for Beluga and has spent every day for many years trading coins. For that reason there are too many to name, however his largest holdings by a significant margin are Ethereum and Bitcoin. NFA DYOR