Risk Warning: Examining the 'Politicization' Scam of Cryptocurrencies Through LIBRA

Original Title: "Risk Alert | Understanding the 'Politicized' Cryptocurrency Scam through LIBRA"

Original Source: SlowMist Security Team

Background

In recent years, an increasing number of politicians have ventured into the cryptocurrency field, issuing digital currencies under the guise of "national economic revitalization" or "innovation," among other pretexts, in an attempt to endorse tokens through the "celebrity effect" and promote the popularization of cryptocurrency. Although these tokens claim to be driving economic reform and technological innovation, they often conceal significant risks, becoming a "wealth trap" for speculators and ordinary investors. From TRUMP launched by the Trump family to the recently controversial LIBRA, these politicized cryptocurrencies have undoubtedly become the focus of the market. However, at the same time, they have also brought about significant security risks and the potential for a financial crisis.

As a company focused on blockchain security, we will use LIBRA as an example to reveal the potential risks of these politicized cryptocurrency projects and provide users with clearer security alerts.

The “Politicized” Cryptocurrency — LIBRA

On February 15, Argentine President Milei launched a Memecoin named LIBRA, claiming that this would help promote the revival of the Argentine economy and publicly released the related contract address. After the announcement, numerous Memecoin enthusiasts rushed to participate in the project, causing LIBRA's price to skyrocket rapidly, with a market cap peaking at nearly $5 billion. However, just hours after the token was launched, the project team withdrew liquidity, causing the market cap to plummet rapidly to $590 million, resulting in significant losses for investors. Following the incident, Milei deleted the relevant promotional tweets, claiming to be unaware of the specific details of the LIBRA project, and announced the initiation of an anti-corruption investigation. As the situation unfolded, not only did lawyers file a lawsuit against Milei for alleged fraud, but it also sparked calls from the political opposition for impeachment proceedings against him.

According to the analysis by the on-chain anti-money laundering and tracking tool MistTrack, eight wallets associated with the LIBRA team have currently profited over $100 million, detailed as follows:

Address 1 - DefcyKc4yAjRsCLZjdxWuSUzVohXtLna9g22y3pBCm2z

On 2025-02-14 21:36:54 (UTC), this address withdrew 10.89 SOL from FixedFloat as initial capital and had previously withdrawn SOL from Kraken:

2025-02-14 21:37:49 to 2025-02-14 21:38:02 (UTC), create a new SPL Token, named LIBRA (Bo9jh3wsmcC2AjakLWzNmKJ3SgtZmXEcSaW7L2FAvUsU), then Mint 1 Billion SPL Tokens:

2025-02-14 21:38:48 (UTC), in the same transaction, transfer 200 million LIBRA to the address Gj9esbWVNJyy55SDJzYudMAznewqmW3Xb6GpUakcCNwT, with no further movement; transfer 500 million LIBRA to the address FdWhTThthSN7mbcmBgh18dzogi1dXqQqBb6BnnzZEJJn, ultimately ending up at address 42rex5yRsP1mdAKHzB5avDzagT6mqB5uYPergUFZ2Tgn.

2025-02-14 21:40:24 to 2025-02-14 21:52:20 (UTC), create DLMM Config and Token Metadata:

22:01, publish a tweet. 22:04, create relevant accounts and transfer LIBRA:

Profit address 1 profits approximately 13.06 million USDC via claimFee, not yet withdrawn:

In addition, profit address 1 also transferred 650,000 LIBRA to address 3apupKwTisjy4Wx1zVndXVegmxtR9majPEgHatBRZ1LF at 22:30:34, the beneficial owner of this address is currently unknown.

Address 2 - 2QmyirshoyT2ApsQU8bXdeGa2vTsNp1rxEzv4qhzTwyh

Profit approximately 32,052 SOL in address 2, not yet withdrawn, valued at approximately 6.4 million USD:

The address previously withdrew SOL from Kraken:

Address 3 - BXoCWWijZiVQFXNRqcZAiHQroYkaUnjkRznnZrt9gj42

Profited approximately 148,343 SOL, worth around $28.84 million:

The address transferred 148,343 SOL to address B9KTwxhc9e6qrjw5nfmhgcN38oKFTBtnef8AwaTPVQ6q, which has not been withdrawn yet.

Furthermore, the initial funds of this address came from 1 SOL transferred from address HnnQaCzoFBSkT1xgksM6biyAZSyZgiorYsE6ZKDHC2rs, and address HnnQ also transferred 1 SOL to profit address 4, with address HnnQ's initial funds coming from Coinbase.

Address 4 - jwudCiJ5QUUmfxPXN41jaqYKnSc3UmKo5RoRGkZzomN

Profited approximately 69,276 SOL, worth around $13.47 million:

The address transferred 69,276 SOL to address FTjLYkNARZHnqekpKj5mHzbJx7EqW1fSr15Ec4oijBUQ, which has not been withdrawn yet. The initial funds of address FTjL came from 0.14 SOL transferred from address CuJgNwudFRikz1e82Rug6CNtxfoery8qBRUGPtSx5KVi.

It is worth noting that the initial funds of address CuJgNwudFRikz1e82Rug6CNtxfoery8qBRUGPtSx5KVi came from Bybit, and this address provided funding for the deployment of Melania, a Memecoin launched by Melania Trump, the former First Lady of the United States.

Address 5 - 5Wsjee6FgZQtxjUBedfNq9ZbV6RN7wgb4N422LyV3ZEr

Profit of approximately 1.85 million USDC:

The address previously withdrew SOL from Kraken:

After multiple transfers, the USDC ultimately remained in address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C. Furthermore, we found that other sources of USDC in address 61yK were transferred from profit addresses 6, 7, 8, with a current total balance of 44.59 million USDC.

Address 6 - EFrg9SXbnCfuVqJPJf2hKKY3CtTPLHvipEpgrHjBkb4L

Profit of approximately 7.25 million USDC, transferred to address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C, and address 6's SOL came from Kraken:

Address 7 - 8NScYncjpY1mKrbxVJFFdVqNPEocyXTnQqy9GW1hg4j3

Profit of approximately 26.43 million USDC, transferred to address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C, and address 7's SOL came from Kraken:

Address 8 - 5fnahDWBtUB8QBTXWHm2QzfAoAVHToxvMf38i3a7okGe

Profit of approximately 9 million USDC, transferred to address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C, and address 8's SOL came from Kraken:

As a newly launched project, LIBRA has not undergone a market audit, lacks a public technical whitepaper or compliance safeguards, and lacks value support. It is worth noting that some media outlets have pointed out controversial remarks in Milei's social media history, suggesting this behavior may be due to a hacked account. Furthermore, there have been allegations from users claiming that crypto influencer Threadguy admitted in a previous live stream that he was aware of LIBRA's token issuance information weeks in advance, potentially indicating another insider trading incident. This raises further questions about the legitimacy and security of this "token issuance operation." In addition, there have been rumors that a close associate of Milei accepted a $5 million bribe to push this token project in front of the president, facilitating the president's promotion of LIBRA. All these revelations further expose the possible manipulation and lack of transparency behind politicians launching tokens, highlighting the core issue of inadequate regulation behind the project.

The Risks Behind the Celebrity Effect

Milei is not the first politician to dabble in cryptocurrency. In January 2025, Trump also launched a Memecoin called TRUMP, which, solely based on his personal brand effect, successfully sparked a market frenzy. On the day of its launch, $TRUMP's market value skyrocketed by 1250%, with a trading volume exceeding 5 billion dollars.

Users' FOMO sentiment towards $TRUMP also led to new scams. An X account named @TrumpDailyPosts with over 1.6 million followers not only synchronizes Trump's posts on Truth Social to Twitter but also posts Trump-related news and other tweets. According to an analysis by the SlowMist Security Team, this account had posted at least 4 tweets about the Memecoin, all of which were deleted minutes after posting, and only the mentioned account was allowed to comment.

The Trump family's actions are not the first to cause controversy. As mentioned earlier, the token MELANIA launched by Trump's wife Melania led to a halving of the TRUMP price, causing MELANIA's market value to evaporate by 7.5 billion dollars in just 10 minutes, resulting in significant wealth losses for users. Although Trump and his family claim that these actions are "in support of cryptocurrency innovation," these tokens often lack underlying value support, relying on the core of celebrity effect hype, with the market lacking a true assessment of the project's value. Once the market hype fades, the token's value will rapidly collapse, causing significant losses to ordinary investors, appearing glamorous on the surface but hiding substantial risks.

Politicized cryptocurrency does not equate to economic innovation and is often merely a tool for shifting contradictions and attracting attention.

In February 2025, the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, launched a Memecoin called CAR, claiming that this move would drive national development through crypto assets. However, an investigation by the SlowMist Security Team found that CAR's official website was only registered for 4 days, with 80% of the tokens concentrated in 6 associated addresses, funded by Binance, lacking security audits and technical support.

That same month, the social media account @chedetofficial of Malaysia's former Prime Minister also tweeted an announcement of the launch of $MALAYSIA, with the account suspected to have been hacked.

We identified through MistTrack that the creator of the smart contract address (CA) associated with this account has been linked to a historical malicious group.

Fast forward to February 17, a fake X account claiming to be a Saudi Crown Prince official has been continuously posting tweets about Memecoin:

In addition to the above "coin launch" event, some politicians have also attempted to boost fiscal revenue through cryptocurrency mining farms, with Iran being one of them. The Iranian government had announced the legalization of domestic cryptocurrency mining farms to bring in more foreign exchange for the country. However, this move not only failed to effectively relieve Iran's economic pressure but also resulted in massive resource wastage and illegal power consumption due to a lack of proper regulation and policy safeguards, further diminishing the government's credibility in the international community.

Such tokens often experience an initial price surge through hype and fund manipulation, but when the market bubble bursts, investors are often left bearing the brunt of the losses. We have witnessed investors get liquidated within a very short period, suffering significant losses. This vicious cycle not only tarnishes the market image of cryptocurrency but also poses a significant threat to the wealth of ordinary investors.

Beware of Politicized Cryptocurrency Scams

The innovation of cryptocurrency should be built on a transparent and fair regulatory framework, rather than becoming a tool for politicians to exploit their personal influence and capital for hype. While the celebrity effect may attract a large number of investors in the short term, this hype often lacks underlying value, and these projects are usually unaudited, unregulated, and lacking reliable technical support. In such cases, investors blindly follow the trend, and once market sentiment reverses, token prices quickly collapse, leaving ordinary investors as the biggest victims.

We advise users to remain vigilant when dealing with such projects. It is essential to critically assess their authenticity and security from multiple perspectives, avoid blindly following trends, and preferably choose platforms that have undergone rigorous audits and compliance. To better protect their assets, users can utilize professional on-chain tracking tools such as MistTrack (https://misttrack.io/) to monitor and analyze their funds. MistTrack can assist users in real-time transaction tracking, fund flow analysis, thereby reducing the risk of encountering scams or Rug Pull events, and better safeguarding asset security.

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