GuShiio.com As the Libra coin issue farce simmered for several days, Kelsier Ventures, the operator behind it, and its CEO Hayden Davis, surfaced. This article will get closer to them to learn about their background and their role in the Libra scandal.
Author: Weilin, PANews
Argentine President Millay has recommended LIBRA tokens many times on social media X platform, and the token price has also plummeted due to the deletion of tweets. As the Libra coin issue farce raged for several days, Kelsier Ventures, the operator behind it, and its CEO Hayden Davis, surfaced and were accused of being the co-founders of the Libra token. With the exposure of insider trading, political involvement and multiple operating plans, Hayden Davis was accused of being a “rugger”, including deeply manipulating tokens such as Trump’s wife’s namesake MEME MELANIA. In a recent video interview, Hayden Davis responded to various questions related to the creation of LIBRA.
Hayden Davis is one of the core figures in the Argentine president’s coin issue scandal. This article will get closer to Hayden Davis and Kelsier Ventures to learn about their backgrounds and their role in the Libra scandal.
Hayden Davis is accused of bribing Argentina’s President Javier Milei’s inner circle.
On February 19, Coindesk reported that Hayden Davis had said in a text message in December last year that he could “control” Argentine President Millay because he had been sending money to Millay’s sister Karina Milei (now Secretary-General of the Argentine Presidential Palace). “I send money to his sister, and he will sign whatever I say and do what I want.” This disclosure is the latest development in the LIBRA token scandal that has been raging for several days.
However, Davis spokesman Michael Padovano immediately responded that the media report was “politically motivated” and that he did not remember sending such a text message and there was no relevant record on his mobile phone.
The matter dates back to the morning of February 15. Millay recommended a little-known token,$LIBRA, on the X platform. Its market value rose to $4.24 billion within half an hour and then fell to $827 million. But as more information on huge profits from the inside address was disclosed, Millay deleted the post a few hours later and denied having any connection with the cryptocurrency, and the price of the currency quickly fell to US$0.2. This presidential money-issuing farce has also intensified, and many projects including Kelsier Ventures, KIP Protocol, Meteora, Jupiter and other projects have also been implicated.
Among them, Kelsier Ventures, as the issuer of Libra, was pointed out to be involved in insider trading of various meme tokens such as MELANIA, ENRON, and BOB, earning more than US$200 million.
The scale of investor losses caused by Libra this time has further pushed Kelsier Ventures to the forefront.
El Eonomista estimates that 44,000 users were affected by the “rug pull” incident. According to encryption lawyer Wassielawyer, this number may reach nearly 75,000 users, with a total loss of approximately US$286 million. However, Argentine President Millay said that it was false to say that 44,000 people were affected, and that only 5,000 people were at most. The possibility of involving Argentines is very remote. PANNews ‘survey shows that nearly 30% of large households have taken over at high prices, and early buyers have become the hardest hit areas with losses.
Participated in many “rug pull” events, restaurant owners transformed into crypto family businesses
On February 17, blockchain data company Bubblemaps issued an article on platform X stating: “LIBRA is the same team behind MELANIA and other short-lived tokens. After analyzing cross-chain transfers and time patterns, we are highly convinced that this speculation is correct. It all started with our investigation of sniper activity on MELANIA.” On-chain analysis shows that Kelsier Ventures ‘wallets play a central role in scams involving MELANIA, TRUST, KACY, VIBES and the recently hyped HOOD tokens.
Kelsier Ventures has previously remained secretive. Despite this, an industry source recently contacted by PANews said,”This Kelsier market maker is Dubai’s famous meme rugger.”
Currently, Kelsier Ventures is still actively operating, but its location is uncertain. An investigative video from BoDoggos Entertainment CEO Nick O’Neil revealed that he received a bid. Kelsier Ventures ‘service process is divided into these steps:
- Wash, deploy, snipe
- Market make
- dump the market make tokens, 20%
- Shuffle and extract (wash extract)
90% of the “snipers” come from within Kelsier Ventures. They distribute tokens to friends or set up operations for their own robots. Kelsier Ventures has set a 2% token allocation and a maximum daily sales limit of 0.1%. In addition, the daily charge is US$3000 or 20% of the withdrawal amount, whichever is higher.
According to an official tweet by Kelsier Ventures, the company “invests, provides consulting and brings cutting-edge technologies of blockchain, cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence to market.” At present, its official website has deleted team information, and its homepage does not seem to be much different from other Web 3 projects.
According to public information, Kelsier Ventures was established in 2021 and is headquartered in Delaware, USA. The company focuses on investing in companies in the financial services industry. Since its inception, Kelsier Ventures has completed five investments, including DeFitune, Scallop Group and UpRock. In addition, in November 2023, Kelsier participated in the financing of Saturn, a Bitcoin unmanaged P2P order book service provider. On June 1, 2024, E Money Network announced on the X platform that the project had completed a US$3.3 million bridge round of financing, with Kelsier Ventures being one of the leading investors. Kelsier Ventures ‘latest investment took place on January 26, 2025, in DeFITunta, a company in the financial services industry.
Kelsier Ventures ‘website previously showed that Hayden Davis’ father, Tom Davis, is the company’s chairman. He served a prison sentence and later ran a restaurant chain on the east coast of the United States. When visiting Dubai to expand his business, he read the news that Dubai planned to establish a “Crypto Valley” and came up with the idea of starting a blockchain company in Dubai. Later, he began to meet top people in the crypto field, build connections, and dabbled in venture capital funds, investing in multiple early projects. Early on, Tom once called himself CEO of Kelsier Ventures. Kelsier Ventures team COO Gideon Davis is presumed to be Hayden Davis ‘brother. In 2022, as a college student, he has already begun to get involved in the encryption industry, working in the DeFi project Unlock and its metaverse project NeoNexus. But in March 2022, the project claimed that it had run out of funds and failed to continue operating, and the community accused it of “soft rug.”
Hayden Mark Davis’s LinkedIn page is currently inaccessible. However, according to public reports, his previous information shows that he has been Kelsier’s CEO since October 2020. Since May of the same year, he has become the founder of Luxury Drip, a company with an unknown industry. According to Davis, he has been starting a business since August 2017, running a company called Leaders Elevate, which appears to be another family business of the Davis family.
Admitted to participating in the MELANIA sniper attack, saying Libra was not Rug but a failed plan
In addition to issuing a video statement after the incident, Hayden Mark Davis also spoke to crypto blogger Coffeezilla. He said,”In the original LIBRA launch plan, Millay would post another video, and then some other high-profile people would interact with him. So when we thought at the time, could we extract liquidity to drive away the ‘sniper’ while reserving funds to prevent the project from completely collapsing after the price fell, and then ask Millay to release a second video and reinvest the funds. Come in and replicate the TRUMP-like ‘explosion feast’. I don’t know why Millay deleted the first message. I guess he was under great political pressure, which caused him to panic. Considering where he is, I can fully understand how he feels.”
Despite the collapse of the token, he said,”People say this is another rug. This is not an objective fact. There are still tens of millions of dollars in liquidity locked in, and the market value of the token is still US$300 million. This is not a rug, it’s just a failure of the plan. As a custodian, I still have $100 million in the account I control, but I really want someone to tell me what to do with it. I don’t want to be the target of public criticism. I didn’t benefit from it, but my life was in danger because of it.”
When talking about insider trading, host Coffeezilla said that people’s frustration is that they are not angry because you are good at trading, but because you know information that the public doesn’t know and use that information to trade. In the open market, this is illegal and insider trading.
Hayden Davis said,”But it’s not illegal in the meme market. This is what happens in every trade. These are the rules here. People know this, agree with this, and make money from this. If you want to blame this, you have to blame everything else. To be honest, I don’t actually oppose this. But I think that the vast majority of people who bet on meme tokens, especially for retail traders who sell in the early stages, is the rule of the game in this market. This is not a capital market, this is a casino.”
In the interview, Davis also admitted to participating in the sniper attack on the President’s First Lady’s token MELANIA.
Legal storm may ensue for refunds for participating projects to avoid suspicion
Affected by the Libra coin issue scandal, on February 17, DefiTunes founder Moty publicly announced through the X platform that DefiTunes had refunded and severed all contact with Kelsier, an investor who invested US$30,000 in the project on January 16, 2025.
Not only that, the Libra incident also raises legal risks. On February 15, the Argentine Presidential Palace announced that Millay had instructed the Anti-Corruption Office to immediately participate in the investigation to determine whether any members of the Argentine government, including Millay himself, had acted improperly in this incident. The opposition plans to impeach Millay.
On February 17, an Argentine law firm filed criminal charges against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), accusing them of being behind the collapse of the LIBRA token and demanding an investigation into the role of Argentine President Millay. In another legal battlefield, Citizens Alliance ARI also filed a criminal complaint on February 17, asking the Justice Department to investigate allegations of bribery and fraud allegedly promoted by President Milei, adding that “the government cannot be both an athlete and a referee.”
As the LIBRA token scandal continues to ferment, the role and motives of Hayden Davis and Kelsier Ventures have become the focus of public and regulatory attention. Although Davis tried to clarify his position and emphasize that his actions complied with market rules, doubts about his alleged market manipulation and insider trading have not dissipated. As more evidence emerges, this incident may have a profound impact on the regulatory environment of the cryptocurrency market. PANews will continue to track and pay attention to the latest developments.
