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It’s been a year since Argentine President Javier Milley supported a project that prompted hundreds of thousands around the world to invest in Libra, a meme that turned out to be just a hoax.
Alfonso Gamboa Silvestre, a 25-year-old from Chile, was among many traders who suffered huge losses. The code launch and a quick collapse cost him $10,000. From that moment, he left the cryptocurrency industry permanently.
A presidential endorsement led to a buying frenzy
On Valentine’s Day last year, Gamboa Silvestre was shopping on his computer. The day seemed normal until a notification appeared on his phone from one of the many crypto groups he had on Telegram.
He opened the letter, which said something along the lines of “President of Argentina Just launched a digital currency token“Gamboa Silvestre took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to see if it was true.
At first he thought it was Millie’s account It was hacked. But after reading the president’s confirmed tweet and the Freedom Lives Project website that listed it, Gamboa Silvestre ruled out that possibility.
So he bought the code. In total, invest $5,000.
“I made two purchases. First, a smaller one. When I was absolutely sure it was the tweet (Millie), I wrote a bigger tweet,” Gamboa Silvestre told BeInCrypto in an interview in Spanish.
Gamboa Silvestre then left the house to go out to dinner with his family, but he could not take his eyes off his phone. The price of the scale was constantly falling, and I did not know what to do.
Choosing what looked best on the menu and avoiding the anxious gaze of his family was quite difficult, so he locked himself in the bathroom of the restaurant.
“At first I thought the symbol would go down, then go back to infinity,” said Gamboa Silvestre. “But it didn’t happen. I saw things go up and down, and February 14 ended up being a nightmare.”
As investors began to withdraw their money en masse, Gamboa Silvestre also began to withdraw his money. He ended up doubling his original investment in losses.
This event also marked their permanent exit from the digital currency system.
From active trader to full exit
Gamboa Silvestri first entered the world of cryptocurrencies in 2016, mostly out of curiosity. However, he started taking it seriously in 2022 and became an active trader.
meme currency sector Treat it well at first.
Gamboa Silvestre was an early investor in Trump and Melania, two icons launched by US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump less than 48 hours before Trump took office.
He had great success for himself, and thought that the story would be similar with Libra.
“I think since Millie had different meetings with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, I told her, ‘OK, this is going the same way, and they’re going to do things right, and I can make money from it,'” Gamboa-Silvestre recalled.
But things didn’t go that way. In addition to the money he lost, Gamboa Silvestri gave up something that was more important to him: his love for cryptocurrencies.
“After what happened with Libra, I completely moved away from that world. I stopped doing something that I really liked and that had brought me a lot of profit during that period,” he said. “In the future, I could see myself living only from this. But I lost all my confidence.”
Today, the only link Gamboa Silvestre has left with the industry is his involvement in a class action lawsuit filed against Millie.
Datta disputes Millie’s claims
Gamboa Silvestre is one of 212 investors seeking to recover their losses in a pending lawsuit in Argentina.
Although Milley has repeatedly downplayed LIBRA’s impact on investors, the facts tell a different story.
According to data from Rebio, the only central exchange that operates in the country, 1,329 citizens lost money. These figures directly contradicted Meili’s earlier claims that only a small number of Argentine investors were affected.
The Argentines were not alone That lost money. The impact has been international, affecting investors in places from Bosnia to Lebanon to Australia.
In the United States, it is moving forward Separate class action v. Hayden Davis, American investor and CEO of Kelser Ventures, who He was accused of being the teacher behind the project.
Trust is eroded as the investigation continues
Although a year has passed since the launch of Libra, Miele has yet to provide a clear explanation to their level of participation In the code project.
According to Agustín Rombola, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, Meili’s answers have varied greatly over the past year.
“First he told us that it was a casino, and that he does not cry in the casino. Then he told us that he had the right to sell his opinions. Then he told us that he was not like a leader at the time of the tweet. (Next), he told us that he had been scammed,” Rompola told BeInCrypto.
According to deputy Maximiliano Ferraro, One of the strongest critics In the Libra scandal, Milley has yet to address a major issue regarding his role in the case.
“There are still many unanswered questions. Who contacted the president, and how did they give that (smart contract address) that contained more than 40 characters and had no public status?” Ferraro said in an interview in Spanish.
As the investigation into what happened continues, the financial damages are still being calculated, as is the loss of trust.
For Gamboa Silvestre and thousands of others, Libra was not only a failed investment, but a turning point that completely reshaped their relationship with cryptocurrencies.
