Crypto-scandal: Novelli and Milei’s US$5-million $LIBRA deal

On January 30 last year, crypto-bro Mauricio Novelli texted a friend asking for a contact at a nightclub. “I closed a huge deal,” he told his buddy, “I want to celebrate.” That same day, President Javier Milei had posted a now-infamous picture of him alongside Hayden Mark Davis, a US-national that painted himself as a blockchain expert whose real experience had to do with the launch of scammy meme-coins, including ‘$MELANIA,’ which was endorsed by the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump. 

Less than one month later, on February 14, Milei posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), endorsing a new project that would raise funds for smaller tech ventures in Argentina named ‘$LIBRA.’ He also copied the address of a smart contract or a unique and specific string of characters where funds could be sent using crypto-currency. The rest of the story is well known, the creators of $LIBRA executed a classic “rug pull,” pumping the price and then dumping liquidity with a group of insiders, generating an incredible windfall while screwing anyone who trusted Milei’s recommendation. 

Argentina’s President later deleted the post and said he had no financial relationship with the project, that he had found the smart-contract randomly on the Internet, and that the caste was trying to get back at him for ending their privileges. All of these were lies, of course.

A giant trove of documents that were part of the prosecution’s investigation was recently leaked to the press, consisting of thousands of documents, voice notes, text messages and other types of media scraped from Novelli’s mobile phone. Many had formerly been deleted by the crypto-scammer and were recovered by digital forensics teams. Among the most revealing is a draft “final agreement” with “H” (presumably Hayden Mark Davis) detailing a payment scheme worth US$5 million. As part of the deal,  Milei would endorse the project on social media and later sign an exclusivity deal with Davis’ Kelsier Ventures for representation and consulting with the Argentine state. 

The file was created on February 11 and many of those payments can be tracked on the blockchain, or permanent ledger, that is the backbone of the crypto world. Among the files there was a previous lobbying agreement between a British Virgin Isles-domiciled Kelsier entity and Novelli and his partners in multiple scams, Manuel Terrones Godoy and Sergio Morales. It was worth US$1.55 million, as well as a 35-percent success fee. The file was created in November 2024 – weeks after Novelli, Terrones Godoy and Morales organised a conference named Tech Forum, at which Milei and then spokesperson Manuel Adorni were among the headline speakers.

Data engineer and blockchain analyst Fernando Molina tracked these and other associated payments. He indicates the total amount of money involved in launching the $LIBRA crypto-scam is closer to US$10 million, or at least that’s the amount he managed to identify. Many of the transactions match neatly alongside the days in which the perpetrators were meeting, texting, and executing. 

Among the most damning pieces of evidence found on Novelli’s device are the multiple phone exchanges with Milei the day they launched $LIBRA. That fateful Valentine’s Day, the crypto-bro and the President exchanged calls seven times for more than 13 minutes, including two minutes before and two minutes after Milei posted the smart contract on X. Novelli also had multiple interactions with Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei, the President’s sister, and controversial political advisor Santiago Caputo, in what we can assume was an attempt to contain the fallout of the botched operation. 

A few days later, when Milei gave his first televised interview regarding $LIBRA to journalist Jonathan Viale, he had prepared his responses, apparently with Novelli’s help. The interview went viral after the original recording of it was posted online. It revealed that Santiago Caputo had interrupted the recording of the television interview to correct the President, while telling the journalist what he could ask and what he couldn’t.

One of the final revelations of the past few weeks is that prosecutor Eduardo Taiano has been sitting on much of this evidence for months. According to lawyer and journalist Natalia Volosin, who leaked many of the documents forcing the prosecutor’s hand, Taiano had received a report from the digital forensics teams detailing the first draft agreement and invoices running into the millions of dollars by November 17, 2025. The report on the multiple phone conversations came into his possession by January 9, this year. 

Volosin has publicly denounced prosecutor Taiano on social media, leading to a further trove of documents being released last week, which were first reported by journalist Ari Lijalad and then more broadly by most major outlets, with the expected exception of Infobae. The presumption is that once Volosin opened Pandora’s Box, the prosecution “allowed” the documents to make their way out into the public’s hands via the press.

What do all of these fascinating details tell us about the $LIBRA crypto-scandal? Not much that we didn’t already know, to be honest. That Novelli and his associates were low-life scammers looking to get rich quick in the volatile world of crypto-currencies? Well known. The fact that the Milei siblings were totally in on the deal and lied repeatedly about their involvement was also evident nearly from the start? Well known, as published in this column previously. 

What we do have now is confirmation of the close relationship between Milei and Novelli and the constant financing that the President has received from the tech entrepreneur throughout his short but eventful political career. While we don’t have the smoking gun (confirmation of payments to the Milei siblings), we do have Novelli’s descriptions of the agreements and the dates of his messages match meetings at the Casa Rosada and elsewhere together with payments confirmed onchain to digital wallets associated to Hayden Mark Davis, Novelli, and others.

It is difficult to imagine that Milei will admit wrongdoing regarding his involvement with $LIBRA, most probably because he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. Under his libertarian, anarcho-capitalist worldview, he’s making money as a private individual and ultimately those on the losing side of the scam should’ve probably done their research better. 

Indeed, he had already been involved in a previous crypto-related Ponzi-scheme named CoinX back in 2021. The fact that he is now the President of Argentina and therefore has substantially more reach and sway than ordinary, private individuals, doesn’t seem to stick with him. Blatant lying in order to cover one’s back is also justified by a moral stance in which absolute freedom is the only thing he claims to stand by. Ultimately, Milei demonstrates he’s greedy, selfish, and unscrupulous. To the President’s favour, he’s not the first top-level public official to use his position for personal benefit. But according to his terminology, such behaviour is one of the prime definitions of the caste.

The scathing revelations of the case will not necessarily have a derailing effect on Milei’s Presidency. He has suffered these types of public image shocks in the past, most notably when $LIBRA originally surfaced, or when his economic plan was put severely under pressure during last year’s campaign season. The wild-haired economist has proven time and again that he is extremely resilient from a political standpoint, but there are signs that his popular support is waning. It remains elevated, perhaps in part because there isn’t much of an opposition out there to capitalise on his mistakes. 

That doesn’t mean that $LIBRA and other instances of corruption and conflicts of interest – such as Cabinet Chief Adorni’s recent scandal with his wife and several overseas flights – won’t have an impact. They are particularly damaging at a moment when the government’s economic plan is once again cracking under pressure, failing to spark a positive cycle for a majority of the population. 

Argentina’s elections are not until October 2027; Milei has time. But if he doesn’t find a solution to the economic quagmire the country is currently facing, time will have him – unless another scandal takes him down first.