Judge freezes $LIBRA-related accounts and orders owner identity and transaction records to be provid

Argentina's federal judge ordered the freezing of 25 cryptocurrency accounts linked to the notorious $LIBRA token investigation. The investigation was triggered by the fact that the market value of $LIBRA plunged 89% in three hours after President Javier Millay promoted the token on his X account, resulting in user losses estimated to be between $100 million and $250 million.

At the request of prosecutor Eduardo Taiano, Judge Marcelo Martinez de Chogi also asked six exchanges to identify account holders and provide complete transaction records of frozen accounts.

Why did Argentina order the freezing of cryptocurrency accounts?

The freezing of 25 accounts on six cryptocurrency exchanges is the latest development in the investigation into $LIBRA token money laundering. The token was once promoted by President Javier Millay through deleted posts on his X account.

According to sources, the judge asked for the following information:

10 addresses for Binance
8 addresses for Bybit
2 addresses for OKX
2 addresses for CoinEx
2 addresses for Bitfinex
1 address for FixedFloat

The order required almost all details that customers submit to the platform during the Know Your Customer (KYC) process. In addition to account opening documents, Judge Marcelo also requested internal memoranda, IP connection logs, associated bank account data and complete transaction records. The Cybercrime Unit of Argentina's Federal Police will be responsible for enforcing these orders.

Regarding the basis of the order, a federal judge said it helped trace and potentially recover some of the illegal gains from the program, which caused losses to users.

Can a judge force the freezing of cryptocurrency wallets?

Currently, Judge Marcelo's order has not stopped the flow of funds. However, unlike a fully entrusted wallet, the court could force exchanges to cooperate, which would provide investigators with a clear picture of who controls the account and where the funds are flowing, in addition to the freezing order.

The request is based on a technical report from the police cybercrime unit, which reconstructs the flow of funds through backtracking and open source analysis. According to sources, funds were initially concentrated in a cluster called "Team Libra Wallets", which pushed millions of tokens to the Meteora liquidity protocol on Solana on February 14 and 15, 2025, which were subsequently pooled into a single transit wallet.

The report describes a large-scale capital flight that occurred on May 10, 2026, when 498,539.85 USDT appeared on the Tron network after depositing the equivalent USDC on Solana. The redemption is completed through an automated liquidity provider and takes approximately 16 seconds rather than a traditional exchange.

Investigators said that since then, funds have been dispersed into small daily amounts that flow through multiple wallets, a method the report calls "digital ant moving."

A scandal dating back to presidential posts

The case began with a post on X by Millay on February 14, 2025, which promoted $LIBRA and helped it soar from about 1 cent to nearly $5 in a matter of hours before collapsing. TRM Labs, which tracks the token's issuance, reported that its market value briefly reached about $4.5 billion, but fell about 89% within three hours of the post's release.

Millay later deleted the message and said he had nothing to do with the project and did not know its details.

Loss estimates vary depending on data source. Some figures say more than 40,000 people lost nearly $100 million, while other estimates put more than $250 million.

Foreign company Kip Network (represented by Julian Paye) and Kelsier Ventures, run by American businessman Hayden Davis, are listed as participants in the creation of the token. Lobbist Mauricio Novelli, his partner Manuel Trones Godoy and Davis were indicted in the Argentina investigation.

What happens next depends on the attitude of the exchange. Whether and how quickly Binance, Bybit, OKX, CoinEx, FixedFloat and Bitfinex hand over KYC documents will determine how far investigators can trace funds.