LIBRA memecoin orchestrators named as defendants in US class-action suit
The Libra token scandal is set to be reviewed by the Supreme Court of New York after a newly filed class-action lawsuit accused its creators of misleading investors and siphoning over $100 million from one-sided liquidity pools.
Burwick Law filed the suit on behalf of its clients against Kelsier Ventures, KIP Protocol and Meteora on March 17 for launching the Libra (LIBRA) token in a “deceptive, manipulative and fundamentally unfair” manner. The token was then promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei on X as an economic initiative to stimulate private-sector funding in the country.
The law firm slammed the two crypto infrastructure and launchpad firms behind LIBRA — KIP and Meteora — claiming that they used a “predatory” one-sided liquidity pool to artificially inflate the memecoin’s price, allowing insiders to profit while “everyday buyers bore the losses.”
Within hours, the insiders “rapidly siphoned approximately $107 million from the liquidity pools,” causing a 94% crash in LIBRA’s market value, Burwick Law said in a March 17 filing shared on X.
Source: Burwick Law
President Milei was mentioned in the lawsuit but wasn’t named a defendant.
Burwick accused the defendants of leveraging Milei’s influence to aggressively promote the token, deliberately creating a false sense of legitimacy and misleading investors about its economic potential.
Approximately 85% of LIBRA’s tokens were withheld at launch and the “predatory infrastructure techniques” allegedly used by the defendants weren’t disclosed to investors, Burwick said.
“These tactics, combined with omissions about the true liquidity structures, deprived investors of material information.”
Burwick is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, the disgorgement of “unjustly obtained” profits and injunctive relief to prevent further fraudulent token offerings.
Related: Law firm demands Pump.fun remove over 200 memecoins using its IP
Data from blockchain research firm Nansen found that of the 15,430 largest Libra wallets it examined, over 86% of those sold at a loss, combining for $251 million in losses.
Only 2,101 profitable wallets were able to take home a combined $180 million in profit, Nansen noted in a Feb. 19 report.
The venture capital firm behind the LIBRA token, Kelsier Ventures, and its CEO, Hayden Davis, were apparently two of the biggest winners from the token launch. They claim to have netted around $100 million.
Davis, who is now facing a potential Interpol red notice following an Argentine lawyer’s request, said on Feb. 17 that he didn’t directly own the tokens and wouldn’t sell them.
Meanwhile, Milei has distanced himself from the memecoin, arguing he didn’t “promote” the LIBRA token — as fraud lawsuits filed against him have alleged — and instead merely “spread the word” about it.
Argentina’s opposition party called for Milei’s impeachment but has had limited success thus far.
Magazine: Meet lawyer Max Burwick — ‘The ambulance chaser of crypto’
Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, a16z and others pressed the Senate to add explicit protections for developers and non-custodial services in the market structure bill.
Reform’s plan was meant to be detailed. Instead, there’s more confusion.
The party had grown weary of the longstanding criticism that their tough talk on immigration did not come with a full proposal for what they would do to tackle small boats if they came to power.
So, after six months of planning, yesterday they attempted to put flesh on to the bones of their flagship policy.
Politics latest: Farage rows back on pledge to deport illegal migrant women and girls
At an expensive press conference in a vast airhanger in Oxford, the headline news was clear: Reform UK would deport anyone who comes here by small boat, arresting, detaining and then deporting up to 600,000 people in the first five years of governing.
They would leave international treaties and repeal the Human Rights Act to do it
But, one day later, that policy is clear as mud when it comes to who this would apply to.
Nigel Farage launched an airport-style departures board to illustrate how many illegal migrants have arrived in the UK. Pic: PA
I asked Farage at the time of the announcement whether this would apply to women and girls – an important question – as the basis for their extreme policy seemed to hinge on the safety of women and girls in the UK.
He was unequivocal: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.
“And I’ve accepted already that how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue.”
But a day later, he appeared to row back on this stance at a press conference in Scotland, saying Reform is “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.
Read more:
Farage has a new ‘leave’ campaign – here’s how it could work
He later clarified that if a single woman came by boat, then they could fall under the policy, but if “a woman comes with children, we will work out the best thing to do”.
A third clarification in the space of 24 hours on a flagship policy they worked on over six months seems like a pretty big gaffe, and it only feeds into the Labour criticism that these plans aren’t yet credible.
If they had hoped to pivot from rhetoric to rigour, this announcement showed serious pitfalls.
But party strategists probably will not be tearing out too much hair over this, with polling showing Reform UK still as the most trusted party on the issue of immigration overall.
The “White Whale” increased his social media pressure campaign to $2.5 million after claiming that MEXC requested an in-person KYC verification in Malaysia.
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