The president of Argentina is facing legal action and calls for his impeachment after he promoted cryptocurrency on social media.
Javier Milei's controversial post "caused a political firestorm", said The New York Times, with opponents describing him as a "crypto scammer".
On Friday Milei, a former private sector economist, posted on X about the $LIBRA coin, which he promised would help fund small businesses and start-ups.
He shared a link to buy it, causing its price to "shoot up", said the BBC, but within a few hours he had deleted the post and the cryptocurrency "nosedived" in value, meaning investors lost most of their money.
He's been accused of a "rug pull" – where promoters of a cryptocurrency deliberately "draw in buyers", only to stop trading activity and "make off with the money raised from sales", said the broadcaster.
"Few Argentines" were financially affected by the currency's crash, said the Financial Times, because analysis of X posts suggested that most $LIBRA buyers were in the US and Asia, but the episode has still caused a headache for him at home.
His opponents "appear unlikely" to secure the two-thirds majority needed in congress to impeach him because centrist blocs said they wouldn't support the proposal, but analysts believe that investigations into the president could "nonetheless weigh on his approval ratings", added the Financial Times.
The "most interesting lesson" of the scandal, according to Milei, is that "I need to put up more filters", and that "it can't be so easy for people to reach me". So the president, who is "reported to spend hours a day on X", might be "forced to become a little quieter", said The Spectator. |