Background

In recent years, more and more politicians have entered the cryptocurrency field, issuing digital currencies in the name of "national economic revitalization" or "innovation", trying to promote the popularization of cryptocurrencies through the "celebrity effect" and endorsement of the tokens. Although these tokens are flying the flags of economic reform and technological innovation, they often hide huge risks and become "wealth traps" for speculators and ordinary investors. From the TRUMP launched by the Trump family to the highly controversial LIBRA recently, these politicized cryptocurrencies have undoubtedly become the focus of the market. But at the same time, they also bring undeniable security risks and potential financial crises.

As a company focused on BlockBeats security, we will next take LIBRA as an example to reveal the potential risks of these politicized cryptocurrency projects and provide users with clearer security warnings.

"Politicized" Cryptocurrency - LIBRA

On February 15, Argentine President Milei launched a Memecoin called LIBRA, claiming that this move would help promote the revival of the Argentine economy, and announced the related contract address. After the news was released, many Memecoin enthusiasts rushed to participate in the project, and the price of LIBRA soared rapidly, with a market capitalization once approaching $5 billion. However, just a few hours after the token was launched, the project party withdrew the liquidity, causing the market value to plummet rapidly to $590 million, causing huge losses to investors. After the incident, Milei deleted the relevant promotional tweets and claimed that he did not understand the specific details of the LIBRA project, and also launched an anti-corruption investigation. As the event unfolded, not only did lawyers file fraud lawsuits against Milei, but the political opposition also called for his impeachment trial.

According to the analysis of the on-chain anti-money laundering and tracking tool MistTrack, the 8 wallets related to the LIBRA team have currently made a profit of over $100 million, with the specific situation as follows:

Address 1 - DefcyKc4yAjRsCLZjdxWuSUzVohXtLna9g22y3pBCm2z

On 2025-02-14 21:36:54(UTC), this address withdrew 10.89 SOL from FixedFloat as initial capital, and had previously withdrawn SOL from Kraken:

From 2025-02-14 21:37:49 to 2025-02-14 21:38:02(UTC), it created a new SPL Token, namely LIBRA(Bo9jh3wsmcC2AjakLWzNmKJ3SgtZmXEcSaW7L2FAvUsU), and Minted 1 billion SPL Tokens:

At 2025-02-14 21:38:48(UTC), in the same transaction, it transferred 200 million LIBRA to the address Gj9esbWVNJyy55SDJzYudMAznewqmW3Xb6GpUakcCNwT, which has not been further transferred yet; and transferred 500 million LIBRA to the address FdWhTThthSN7mbcmBgh18dzogi1dXqQqBb6BnnzZEJJn, which ultimately remained at the address 42rex5yRsP1mdAKHzB5avDzagT6mqB5uYPergUFZ2Tgn.

From 2025-02-14 21:40:24 to 2025-02-14 21:52:20(UTC), it created DLMM Config and Token Metadata:

At 22:01, a tweet was posted. At 22:04, relevant accounts were created and LIBRA was transferred:

Profit address 1 made a profit of about 13.06 million USDC through claimFee, which has not been withdrawn yet:

In addition, profit address 1 also transferred 650,000 LIBRA to the address 3apupKwTisjy4Wx1zVndXVegmxtR9majPEgHatBRZ1LF at 22:30:34, the ownership of which is temporarily unknown.

Address 2 - 2QmyirshoyT2ApsQU8bXdeGa2vTsNp1rxEzv4qhzTwyh

Profit of about 32,052 SOL, not withdrawn yet, worth about $6.4 million:

This address had previously withdrawn SOL from Kraken:

Address 3 - BXoCWWijZiVQFXNRqcZAiHQroYkaUnjkRznnZrt9gj42

Profit of about 148,343 SOL, worth about $28.84 million:

This address transferred 148,343 SOL to the address B9KTwxhc9e6qrjw5nfmhgcN38oKFTBtnef8AwaTPVQ6q, which has not been withdrawn yet.

In addition, the initial capital of this address came from the 1 SOL transferred from the address HnnQaCzoFBSkT1xgksM6biyAZSyZgiorYsE6ZKDHC2rs, and the address HnnQ had also transferred 1 SOL to the profit address 4, and the initial capital of the address HnnQ came from Coinbase.

Address 4 - jwudCiJ5QUUmfxPXN41jaqYKnSc3UmKo5RoRGkZzomN

Profit of about 69,276 SOL, worth about $13.47 million:

This address transferred 69,276 SOL to the address FTjLYkNARZHnqekpKj5mHzbJx7EqW1fSr15Ec4oijBUQ, which has not been withdrawn yet. The initial capital of the address FTjL came from the 0.14 SOL transferred from the address CuJgNwudFRikz1e82Rug6CNtxfoery8qBRUGPtSx5KVi.

It is worth noting that the initial capital of the address CuJgNwudFRikz1e82Rug6CNtxfoery8qBRUGPtSx5KVi came from Bybit, and this address provided funding for the deployment of the Memecoin MELANIA launched by Trump's wife Melania.

Address 5 - 5Wsjee6FgZQtxjUBedfNq9ZbV6RN7wgb4N422LyV3ZEr

Profit of about 1.85 million USDC:

This address had previously withdrawn SOL from Kraken:

The USDC, after multiple transfers, ultimately remained at the address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C. In addition, we found that the other USDC sources of the address 61yK came from the transfers of profit addresses 6, 7, and 8, with a current total balance of 44.59 million USDC.

Address 6 - EFrg9SXbnCfuVqJPJf2hKKY3CtTPLHvipEpgrHjBkb4L

Profit of approximately 7.25 million USDC, transferred to address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C, and address 6's SOL comes from Kraken:

Address 7 - 8NScYncjpY1mKrbxVJFFdVqNPEocyXTnQqy9GW1hg4j3

Profit of approximately 26.43 million USDC, transferred to address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C, and address 7's SOL comes from Kraken:

Address 8 - 5fnahDWBtUB8QBTXWHm2QzfAoAVHToxvMf38i3a7okGe

Profit of approximately 9 million USDC, transferred to address 61yKS9bjxWdqNgAHt439DfoNfwK3uKPAJGWAsFkC5M4C, and address 8's SOL comes from Kraken:

As a newly launched project, LIBRA has not undergone any market audits, has no publicly available technical whitepaper or compliance guarantees, and lacks value support. It is worth noting that some media have pointed out that Milei's social media accounts have had controversial statements in the past, and this behavior may be due to hacker account theft. There are also user reports that crypto KOL Threadguy previously admitted in a live stream that he knew about the LIBRA token issuance information a few weeks in advance, which may be another case of insider trading, further obscuring the legitimacy and security of this "token issuance operation". In addition, there are also reports that one of Milei's close associates received a $5 million bribe to bring this token project to the president's attention and facilitate the president's promotion of LIBRA. All of the above further exposes the potential manipulation and lack of transparency behind politicians launching tokens, and also highlights the core issue of the lack of effective regulation behind these projects.

The Risks Behind the Celebrity Effect

Milei is not the first politician to venture into cryptocurrencies. In January 2025, Trump also launched a Memecoin called TRUMP, and solely based on his personal brand effect, it successfully sparked a market frenzy. On the day of its launch, $TRUMP's market cap surged 1250%, with trading volume exceeding $5 billion.

Users' FOMO sentiment towards $TRUMP also triggered new scams. An X account named @TrumpDailyPosts with over 1.6 million followers not only synchronizes Trump's posts on Truth Social to Twitter, but also posts news and other tweets related to Trump. According to the Slow Mist security team's analysis, the account had posted at least 4 tweets about the Memecoin, and these tweets were deleted within minutes, with only the accounts mentioned in the tweets allowed to comment.

The Trump family's behavior is not the first to be controversial. As mentioned earlier, the token MELANIA launched by Trump's wife Melania caused a 50% drop in the TRUMP price, and MELANIA's market cap evaporated $7.5 billion in just 10 minutes, causing huge wealth losses for users. Although Trump and his family claim these initiatives are to "support crypto innovation", these tokens often lack value support, with their hype relying solely on the celebrity effect, and the market lacks judgment on the true value of these projects. Once the market enthusiasm subsides, the value of the tokens will quickly collapse, causing significant losses for ordinary investors, with a shiny surface but high risks.

Politicized cryptocurrencies are not synonymous with economic innovation, but often just tools to divert conflicts and attract attention.

In February 2025, the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, launched a Memecoin called CAR, claiming that this move would drive national development through crypto assets. However, the Slow Mist security team's investigation found that the CAR website was only registered for 4 days, and 80% of the tokens were concentrated in 6 related addresses, with funding from Binance, lacking security audits and technical support.

Also in the same month, the social media account @chedetofficial of the former Prime Minister of Malaysia posted a tweet announcing the launch of $MALAYSIA, suspected to be a hacked account.

Using MistTrack, we traced that the creator of the CA (smart contract address) posted by the account was previously associated with a malicious group.

Then on February 17, a fake X account claiming to be a Saudi Prince official has been posting tweets about Memecoins:

In addition to the above "token issuance" events, some politicians have also tried to increase fiscal revenue through cryptocurrency mining, with Iran being one of them. The Iranian government had announced that it would allow domestic cryptocurrency mining operations to operate legally, in order to bring more foreign exchange revenue to the country. However, this move not only failed to effectively alleviate Iran's economic pressure, but also led to massive resource waste and illegal electricity consumption due to lack of effective regulation and policy guarantees, ultimately further eroding the government's credibility in the international community.

These tokens often artificially inflate their prices through hype and capital manipulation in the initial release, but when the market bubble bursts, investors often become the biggest victims. We have already seen investors being liquidated and suffering huge losses in an extremely short period of time. This vicious cycle not only damages the market image of cryptocurrencies, but also poses a serious threat to the wealth of ordinary investors.

Beware of the "Politicized" Cryptocurrency Scams

Cryptocurrency innovation should be built on a transparent and fair regulatory framework, rather than becoming a tool for politicians to exploit their personal influence and capital for speculation. While the celebrity effect can attract a large number of investors in the short term, the hype behind it often lacks value support, and these projects are usually not audited or regulated, and lack reliable technical guarantees. In this case, investors blindly follow the trend, and once the market sentiment reverses, the token prices will plummet quickly, with ordinary investors often becoming the biggest victims.

We remind users to be vigilant when facing these projects. Carefully evaluate their authenticity and security from multiple angles, avoid blindly following the trend, and try to choose platforms that have undergone strict audits and compliance. To better protect their assets, users can use professional on-chain tracking tools like MistTrack (https://misttrack.io/) to monitor and analyze their funds. MistTrack can help users track transactions in real-time, analyze fund flows, and thereby reduce the risk of encountering scams or Rug Pulls, better safeguarding their assets.

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