Argentina Watchdog Found No Ethics Breach in Milei’s $LIBRA Post

Argentina’s Anti-Corruption Office decision concerning President Javier Milei’s promotion of the $LIBRA cryptoasset entered the public record on June 7, 2025, closing one administrative branch of a controversy that had become an international test of political accountability around digital assets.

The office found that Milei did not violate specified provisions of Argentina’s public-ethics law when he promoted the privately organized “Viva la Libertad Project” through his personal X account on February 14, 2025. The conclusion was significant but narrow: it was an administrative ethics determination, not a judicial finding that no fraud, bribery or other crime had occurred.

Contemporaneous reports described the document as Resolution 9/2025 and reported its conclusion on June 7. The resolution itself was signed on June 5, making June 7 the date on which the determination became broadly public rather than the date of the underlying signature.

Why the distinction between private and official mattered

The Anti-Corruption Office examined whether Milei’s post represented government activity, used public resources or created a conflict requiring him to abstain from an official decision. It concluded that the promotion came from his personal account, was not coordinated through an official presidential channel and was not supported by government resources.

The office also said the agencies it consulted identified no state proceeding, administrative act or government contract involving the project or $LIBRA. On that record, it treated the post as individual communication that did not establish an official public-policy direction.

That reasoning addressed provisions of Law 25,188 concerning legality, the use of state resources and the duty to abstain from official matters presenting a conflict. The resolution nevertheless acknowledged that personal and institutional speech can be difficult to separate when the speaker is a head of state. It advised senior officials to communicate private endorsements clearly enough to reduce the risk that audiences interpret them as government backing.

What the resolution did not resolve

The document expressly separated Argentina’s administrative public-ethics regime from its criminal law. It said the two systems have different purposes, evidentiary standards and legal consequences. A federal criminal investigation—case 574/2025 before Federal Criminal and Correctional Court No. 1 and Federal Prosecutor’s Office No. 3—therefore remained outside the resolution’s conclusion.

The Anti-Corruption Office said it had forwarded investigative material to the federal prosecutor on April 28, 2025. It limited its own determination to questions it could assess without interfering with the judicial inquiry. Consequently, descriptions of the June 7 development as a complete exoneration would have overstated the record available on that date.

The office also directed Argentina’s National Securities Commission to consider whether administrative proceedings should examine former commission adviser Sergio Daniel Morales. The unresolved question was whether Morales had used confidential information to benefit people connected with the $LIBRA investigation. The resolution did not find that he had done so.

From token promotion to an institutional inquiry

Milei promoted the project on February 14 and removed the post after the token’s abrupt rise and collapse generated accusations of misconduct. On February 15, the president’s office said Milei had not participated in developing the cryptoasset and announced that the Anti-Corruption Office would investigate possible improper conduct by government personnel, including the president.

Decree 114/2025, issued on February 19, formally instructed the office to investigate possible irregularities or corruption connected with $LIBRA and created a separate investigative task unit to collect information for judicial authorities.

Because the Anti-Corruption Office operated within the executive branch and acted following Milei’s own instruction, its decision carried official authority for the administrative ethics proceeding but was not equivalent to an independent court judgment. That institutional limitation was central to understanding the June 7 result.

The event-day record supports a restrained conclusion: Argentina’s executive-branch ethics watchdog found no violation arising from Milei’s personal promotional post, while criminal and potential securities-regulatory questions remained open. No token price, loss estimate or market-return figure is included because the cited institutional records do not provide a consistent venue, valuation time or measurement methodology sufficient for a verified market claim.