Coindesk

A key player behind the Libra token bragged about buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei’s inner circle months before the memecoin’s scandalous launch and crash.

In text messages reviewed by CoinDesk, Hayden Davis, CEO of Kelsier Ventures, claimed he could “control” Milei because of payments he had been making to Karina Milei, a powerful figure in Milei’s government, not to mention the president’s sister.

“I control that n****,” Davis claimed in text messages from mid-December, adding, “I send $$ to his sister and he signs whatever I say and does what I want.”

Karina Milei’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Davis did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

It was unclear if any money was exchanged between Davis and Milei’s inner circle in advance of Libra’s launch.

Davis’ December claims add a new dimension to an anti-corruption probe that Argentina’s presidential office has opened into Javier Milei, who, on Feb. 15, brought attention to the doomed Libra crypto as a novel way to fund small businesses in that country.

But the biggest winner from the Solana-based memecoin’s launch was Davis and Kelsier Ventures. Wallets controlled by the entities netted over $100 million in Libra’s early hours, when it soared to $5 and then crashed over 95%, wiping out millions of dollars of speculative investments.

Opposition leaders in Argentina have threatened to call for an impeachment trial over the incident, which the local press has coined, “critpogate.” The scandal is weighing on Argentina’s stock market and pushed Milei into “damage control,” said one observer of the country’s crypto space.

In the December text messages, Davis claimed he could get Milei to promote ventures on social media. Milei’s tweet about Libra two months later fueled its rise. When he deleted the tweet after just five hours – and after on-chain sleuths had discovered evidence of shady dealings – Libra’s price had already crashed.

The desultory price action in crypto continued on Tuesday, helping to drag bitcoin (BTC) closer to its lowest level in several months.

In early afternoon trading hours, bitcoin was trading at $93,600, lower by 2% over the past 24 hours and off 10% over the past week.

The broader crypto market as defined by the CoinDesk 20 Index was down 4% over the past 24 hours. Hitting that index was a 16% decline in solana (SOL), which is feeling the pain as the memecoin market may finally have reached peak grift and/or outright criminality over the weekend with the rugpull involving Argentine President Javier Millei. Solana is now down 35% over the past month and has given back all of its post-Trump election gains.

$500K still in play

Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick has previously said he expects bitcoin to eclipse $500,000 by the time Donald Trump leaves office.

Looking past the lame short-term price action, Kendrick — in a morning note on Tuesday — said the recent slate of 13F filings regarding institutional ownership of spot bitcoin ETFs gave him hope.

The type of buyer has evolved from retail to hedge funds and now to banks and sovereigns, said Kendrick, noting a boosted ETF stake from the likes of Goldman Sachs and the initial purchase of a bitcoin ETF by Abu Dhabi.

Kendrick: “Going forward, we would expect more very long-term-long-only money to buy bitcoin and would expect the Abu Dhabi position to be the start of much greater participation by sovereigns.”

Solana slump

Native tokens of protocols tied to the Solana trading environment weren’t spared either. Tokens of decentralized exchanges Raydium (RAY), Jupiter (JUP) posted double-digit losses today, while liquid staking service Jito (JTO) slid 7% lower, with all of them down over 30% from their Friday highs.

The Solana ecosystem, which is benefitted generously as a hub for memecoin trading and launching tokens, is grappling with the fallout from LIBRA, the latest scandalous pump-and-dump token launch that put several key figures in the Solana space and even Argentina’s President Javier Milei in the hot seat.

LIBRA was released on Friday and zoomed to $4 billion market capitalization after Milei’s X post saying the project would support small and mid-sized businesses in the country. The token then lost nearly all its market value as insiders cashed in $100 million and Milei backpedalled his support. Milei now faces fraud charges and a possible impeachment, and Solana-based DEX Meteora co-founder Ben Chow resigned after being implicated in the token launch.

“This is the latest sordid episode emanating from Solana’s memecoin complex,” Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy, said in a Tuesday note. The report pointed out that sentiment towards memecoins began to erode since the TRUMP token

If sentiment weren’t at rock bottom, the upcoming SOL unlock event increasing the token’s circulating supply injects an additional dose of uncertainty in the markets. Estimates vary on the exact amount of tokens to be released into circulation, but one hedge fund analyst forecasted that some 15.725 million SOL, worth roughly $2.5 billion at current prices, will be unlocked over the next three months, with much of the tokens coming from the FTX estate holdings.

“If an unlock of this scale occurs, it could increase the circulating supply of $SOL and potentially impact market dynamics,” Tokenomist analysts said in an X post. “Historical examples of large token unlocks have often led to heightened price volatility. However, it’s essential to note that the precise size of the unlock and the final date are still not publicly disclosed by any official entity.”

Creditors of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX with claims below $50,000 have started receiving their payouts, which include 9% annual interest accrued since November 2022.

Multiple users on the FTX subreddit have reported receiving funds on accounts at crypto exchange Kraken with the added interest on top. Creditors are scheduled to receive roughly 119% of their adjudicated claim value, according to the bankruptcy plan.

Arkham Intelligence also pointing to FTX’s wallet outflows as evidence of the payments, which it says are expected to total around $1.2 billion.

Creditors with claims exceeding the $50,000 threshold are set to begin receiving their payments in the second quarter, with around $16 billion set to be distributed in total.

The funds are being distributed in U.S. dollars through both BitGo and Kraken. According to screenshots shared on Reddit, Kraken also distributed trading-fee credits to users. The move is seen as a way for Kraken to distribute the payouts without profiting from them.

Blockaid, a cybersecurity firm specializing in blockchain security, said it raised $50 million in a Series B funding round to help expand research, engineering and product development.

Ribbit Capital led the round, with backing from GV and existing investors including Variant and Cyberstarts, the company said. The funding comes as demand for blockchain security rises, with major financial institutions and fintech firms expanding their on-chain operations.

Blockaid, which started operations in 2023 and raised $27 million in a Series A round, provides real-time threat detection for blockchain transactions. The company integrates directly with wallets and decentralized applications (dapps) to secure users from malicious actors. Last year, the platform scanned more than 2.4 billion transactions and blocked 71 million attacks.

“While the blockchain itself is secure, on-chain applications and the users that interact with them are at risk,” CEO Ido Ben-Natan said in a statement. “This investment will help us continue to advance our machine learning capabilities and expand our current offerings to stay ahead in a highly adversarial landscape of evolving threats.”

Blockaid’s security network is used by companies such as Coinbase, MetaMask, Uniswap and Stellar.

The investment follows a surge in blockchain activity, with stablecoin transaction volume reaching $8.5 trillion in the latter half of 2024.

See also: More Than Half of Crypto Tokens Debuted in 2024 Were Malicious: Blockaid

Disclaimer: This article, or parts of it, was generated with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

Traditional finance firms that have adopted crypto are moving past the experimentation phase and are actively working on real-world solutions, Mastercard’s head of crypto and blockchain, Raj Dhamodharan, told CoinDesk.

“Many of us in the industry are moving beyond experimentation; it’s actually real solutions,” he said, noting that Mastercard has already enabled stablecoin payments for financial institutions. Those institutions can choose to settle transactions using stablecoins, reflecting a broader trend in crypto adoption.

Last week, the payments giant announced a partnership with crypto compliance firm Notabene, which will integrate Mastercard’s Crypto Credential into its SafeTransact platform to make digital asset transactions more secure and user-friendly.

The Crypto Credential system continues to be a focus of Mastercard’s efforts to make crypto more mainstream. It allows users to send funds using familiar identifiers like email addresses rather than complex wallet addresses while ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. The system also helps prevent misdirected transactions by verifying whether a recipient’s wallet can receive a specific asset.

“What is stopping [crypto] from going mainstream is really that consumers need to be able to find each other using what they already know,” Dhamodharan said.

Mastercard’s goal, according to Dhamodharan, is to be a connector between traditional finance and blockchain networks, ensuring regulatory compliance while enabling new business models. The company plans to announce additional partnerships and use cases in 2025, reinforcing its commitment to integrating crypto into global payments.

“As an industry as a whole, we need to be very open to making [crypto] available as broadly as possible,” he said.

Previously, the payments giant partnered with several crypto-native companies, including Binance. The two parted ways in August 2023 after Binance faced a series of legal issues in the U.S. Mastercard re-allowed users to purchase crypto on the exchange again a year later.

“Binance is a great partner of ours,” Dhamodharan said. “We continue to partner with them in a number of new ways where we can help them with on-ramp and off-ramp. Those are the continuing conversations.”

Taking crypto to the ‘next level’

Dhamodharan is also optimistic about the future of tokenization, which he said will require new business models to feed the growing demand for tokenization real-world assets by companies like BlackRock and Franklin Templeton.

“​​If there is more clarity over time in terms of how deposits can be represented in some form on the public chain, from a regulatory standpoint, I think this can even go to the next level in terms of how it can scale,” he said.

In 2025, Mastercard’s focus lies on the on-ramp/off-ramp between crypto and the banking world, while making that process as smooth and safe as possible as well as expanding features and functions of its Crypto Credential product. The third focus is stablecoins, the company said.

“We think the future is going to be a world of both deposits because that’s where the money is, and that’s where people and businesses hold money and stablecoins, which can move on-chain easily and get settled easily.”

Read more: Mastercard and JPMorgan Link Up to Bring Cross-Border Payments on the Blockchain

The second-largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, MARA Holdings (MARA), has announced the completion of the acquisition of a wind farm in Texas, adding 114 megawatts of nameplate wind capacity and 240 megawatts of interconnection capacity to its operations.

The Florida-based company plans to use the wind farm to power bitcoin mining operations using last-generation ASIC mining hardware “that would have otherwise been written off or sold into the secondary market.”

MARA noted that repurposing the machines and leveraging renewable energy will reduce bitcoin mining products costs while using wind power that might have otherwise gone unused.

“With this added renewable energy asset, MARA now owns and operates 136 megawatts of generating capacity,” CEO Fred Thiel said in an announcement.

MARA is the second-largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, with 45,659 BTC on its balance sheet.

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3183.11, down 1.4% (-46.75) since 4 p.m ET on Monday.

Two of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: LTC (+4.9%) and BTC (+0.3%).

Laggards: APT (-5.6%) and SOL (-5.1%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.

Asset manager Grayscale Investments, known for its bitcoin and ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs), said on Tuesday it has launched the Grayscale Pyth Trust, giving investors exposure to PYTH, the governance token of the Pyth network.

Pyth provides price feeds that help decentralized applications function efficiently. The network sources pricing information from institutional traders and market makers and delivers updates that are critical for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Pyth’s services are particularly crucial in the Solana ecosystem, where 95% of decentralized protocols use the network’s data, Grayscale said.

“The Pyth network plays one of the most significant roles in the Solana ecosystem,” said Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary, Grayscale’s head of product and research. “By introducing the Grayscale Pyth Trust, we aim to give investors access to additional higher-beta and higher-upside opportunities associated with the continued growth of Solana.”

The trust is available for accredited investors only and follows the model of Grayscale’s other single-asset investment trusts, holding only PYTH tokens. Grayscale is known for products like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Ethereum Trust (ETHE), which were converted into an ETF structure last year.
Read more: Pyth Oracle Network Brings Industry Heavyweights Into Governance Post-Airdrop

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

At least two unnamed companies have been taken in by an alleged shapeshifting fraudster selling millions of dollars in fake FTX liquidation claims by apparently using artificial intelligence to help mask his appearance in video calls with buyers, according to an investigation conducted by data firm Inca Digital.

A thief (or thieves) is said to have made off with at least $5.6 million by posing as a person looking to sell his high-dollar FTX liquidation claims, which checked out as valid even though they were not ultimately connected to the person allegedly scamming buyers. The potential thief may have used face-swapping video technology in calls and also is said to have faked other credentials, said officials at Inca Digital that had been asked to lend help.

“It’s likely happening to more people than we know about,” said Adam Zarazinski, CEO of analytics and risk-intelligence company Inca Digital, in a CoinDesk interview. Getting the word out, he said, might warn others that this has been happening on the eve of the FTX payouts.

The stolen funds were quickly laundered through non-U.S. exchanges including Binance, and it remains unclear whether federal law enforcement officials are pursuing data on the involved exchanges. Inca Digital detailed the scam in a report released on Tuesday.

The criminal collapse of the global FTX exchange left billions in assets to be distributed to creditors in a process that’s supposed to start as soon as next week. Naturally, a secondary market has developed for the sums yet to be distributed.

Some of the conclusions in Inca’s report are evidence-backed guesses as to what happened, the document notes. But the person or people behind the reported theft are said to have made video calls to speak with staffs of the firms buying claims, and in those calls, the video passed initial muster but subsequently raised questions about whether it was real — an increasingly common occurrence during the rise of AI fakery.

Besides the allegedly fraudulent video presence, the buyers were also shown identification that had been faked, provided with false addresses in Singapore and were — possibly most importantly — given real claim data. Such data is sometimes publicly available online, but it’s also been the subject of data breaches from firms involved in the bankruptcy proceedings, the report said.

Zarazinski said that this kind of theft may increasingly prey on the surging crypto markets, especially considering the recent boost in industry activity from the administration of President Donald Trump.

“For every opportunity, there are also bad guys lurking behind that opportunity,” he said.

Tether, the crypto firm behind the $140 billion dollar USDT stablecoin, made an “unsolicited” proposal to acquire a majority stake in Latin American agricultural commodities producer firm Agrodeco (AGRO).

Submitted on Feb. 14, the $12.41 per share offer was to bring to Tether’s stake in the company from the current 19.4% to 51%, according to a Tuesday press release by Adecoagro.

The Adecoagro board met on Feb. 16 to discuss the bid and has engaged financial and legal advisors to determine whether accepting the offer aligns with shareholders’ interests, the company said.

Adecoagro’s shares jumped 8% premarket to $10.48 in premarket trading in New York.

Adecoagro is a major player in South America’s agribusiness sector focusing on sugar, ethanol, dairy, and crop production and operating across Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

Tether’s investment offer comes as the company is expanding beyond its core crypto business. The stablecoin issuer said it raked in $13 billion in net profits last year.

Read more: Tether’s $100M Investment in LatAm Agriculture Firm May Be a Tokenization Play