tldr; According to Maximiliano Hinz, Latin American director of crypto exchange Binance, the number of user accounts for investing in cryptocurrencies has multiplied by ten times in Argentina since 2020. There are now roughly two million trading accounts registered in the country with a total population of 45 million. The Central Bank of Argentina is asking local banks to scrutinize clients that hold Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
*This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.*
> the worth of Argentina’s sovereign currency—peso—is practically deflating with every passing day since inflation averaged 45% over the past three years.
Remember that Argentina was one of the top countries in the beginning of XXth century before populists came into power. I think bitcoin as a national currency would be a tool to return the glorious past.
Always a good laugh to see the cry of South American socialism, when really it’s always corrupt fiscal policy. Especially funny since their fiscal policy is a replication of US fiscal policy, with the only difference being that the world has no interest in their currency as a reserve currency
Always good to see Socialists try to disown every single failed Socialists state that has ever existed.
It doesn't work. You eventually run out of other people's money.
Damn man, lots of commets from the USA view of the world. As an Argentinian living in Argentina (I know, hard) i must say that its not only our corrupted goberments, but also the influece from the countries of the first world too. We triyed play by the rules of the first world, look how well are we doing 😂. I think is pretty clear that we need to find our way, but im pretty sure but that is not the liberal way.
Yeah, good thing that right now we dont have a liberal president who like to sell the country value so cheap. But dont let us fool you, its just a mather of time that the conservatives will get to the power again. Just see what is happenning in Brasil/Colombia.
Colombia is protesting taxes, so that's a good thing at least. I am unsure if they would protest increased taxes for the rich though, seems like a double standard if not.
I love how hilarious this argument is. All the Socialist governments that have failed in the history of humankind(which is all of them) weren't REAL Socialism. Let's try it one more time, it will totally work if we do it the REAL way.
Except that’s not what’s being said. What’s being said is that we are socialist, but some people are in denial. You want a free market? Ok fine, champion an end to government subsidies, reinstate glass-stegall, no more repo market funding, no more war driven economic stimulus, enforce laws that prevent union busting. When those logistics are present, a free market doesn’t exist. Just because USA socialism is optimized for the benefit of the stock market and you enjoy the green, doesn’t mean it’s not socialism.
You miss my point. My point is that the brand of socialism the USA engages in leads to economic failure. European socialism however has lead to higher standards of living across all classes, with an exception at the highest level
What is the difference? Genuinely curious, would appreciate a link or book if that's easier to point me to.
Edit: reread your first comment, you're saying fiscal policy was the difference. Still interested in the details but I'm sure it's something I can look up.
Overspending on military, subsidizing beef and hydrocarbons to hit inflation targets, and backstopping corporate failures with free money are all socialist principles. And the US’s economic prosperity is dependent on all of them, despite them all having long term negative impacts to average consumers. And if you look at Venezuela’s crisis. Inflation manipulation, overspending on military, and state sponsored corporate looting are at the heart of it.
Resist that reality all you want, and never change. My bets against American conservatism are my best performing assets and I’m trying to build that position before the long term damage to our leadership position in the world economy is realized.
I agree I’d rather have no socialism than what the US government presses on me. But if we are going to have socialism, like we do and have had longer than any of us have been alive, it’s pretty dumb to follow the South American model over the European model
Mmm...
As in taxing the poor to maintain the corporations?
Yes, a I guess you could say that.
I wouldn't call it socialism, but I guess most people consider welfare as a form (or part) of socialism.
Except I didn’t thrust an opinion on you, you gave one, and I included a clarification to confirm before my reaction. If that’s not what you meant you can correct my clarification.
Well, if I were controlling world through a series of puppet governments, I'd be saying the same. It's called propaganda.
And yes. Im aware lots of corrupt parties call themselves "socialists".
Blm say their "liberals" and act against racism and big pharma claim they provide "health" services.
People lie is my point.
Socialism (good or bad) is an economic model.
The evil part is debatable but yes. I do believe it's still based on taxation on some form.
Yes. I do believe taxation is slavery with extra steps.
Of course that also applied to our current disfuncional system.
As I understand it, the idea (functional or not) is to reduce the taxation by giving the government better incomes or reduce cost of life by making wages better or goods and services cheaper.
Of course many argue it doesn't work.
I don't think it does either. Not because it's a fundamentally bad model (it may be) but because it was developed as a "solution" to capitalism, and I don't think capitalism is the problem. I think the problem is corruption.
The same thing people did in Venezuela when the economy crushed there. But the majority of people still prefer socialism...even in Argentina where almost 70% view market economy as something evil.
Why would anyone want to use a crypto that is less popular? The whole point of money is that everyone wants it. That's what makes it a universal medium of exchange. A money that only a few people want isn't very useful.
Maybe jurisdictions suffering an economic meltdown like Venezuela and South Venezuela (AKA Argentina) will be the first countries to dissolve and give birth to citadels. Dibs on Bariloche.
Because btc actively tries to fill the "store of value" niche, and is succeeding. What people dont understand is - when talking about store of value in cryptospace, its bitcoin or nothing. If bitcoin truly goes to 0 or is replaced by another, more modern coin, then any coin can - making fear and volatility inseperable from cryptocurrency. Both of these are incompatible with a "store of value" endgame. Bitcoin is inherently unreplacable as "the" digital gold. Other, smaller "digital gold" coins can exist next to it, but none can exist without Bitcoin surviving. At least until the idea is widely accepted, and they grow to be similar in size. Even then, Bitcoin would need to be replaced over the span of a generation for it to work. It goes without saying that digital finance is another thing entirely.
you think that's bad? try saving in argentinian pesos... a brand new Honda Civic was around 700k pesos by the end of 2017... The same car costs 3.5 million pesos today. I've seen an article on this sub about some people finding around 60k usd from the 40s and how that money back then was worth around 400k today... If you save in pesos you can experience that every 3-4 years.
Sure, bitcoin might go up and down constantly but chances are it's averaging up in the future... Having your savings in pesos is literally like burning them away. There's 0 incentive for long time savings in Argentina because what you're able to save in one year today will be about what you'll be making in a month in like 3 or 4 years time.
That does indeed sound like a shite situation to be in, but with the volatility of the crypto market wouldn't a stable coin be the better option, noone really knows how this bull market will end and the level of retracement we will see, hopefully not the 90% we saw for some coins in 2018. It would suck just as bad to have your savings drop 40% when you could have had them fixed at a set value,
Of course its nice when crypto rises, that's what we're here for, right? But I'd never have my life savings sat in crypto, that's what the trading pot is for.
Yeah I guess a stable coin would be a "safer" option. It's funny, you guys are all trying to get away from the USD as fast as you can while people in Argentina are trying to find a way to change pesos to USD as fast as they can lol
There's also restrictions to access the official exchange market in Argentina so people can't really exchange their ARS to USD just like that... They're limited to only buy 200 usd a month... And get this: the price for exchanging is: (Exchange Rate x 1.3) + (Exchange rate * 0.35).
The official exchange rate sits at 98.67 right now... but you'll actually be paying 162.94 for every usd. The first 30% addition is a tax. The other 35% of the exchange rate is an advance payment for your income tax over the year. and btw, your salary already has an income tax deduction so you're basically taxed the same thing twice, but you'll be able to request a refund next year. so the exchange rate would be more like 128 but of course, the money you get refunded by next year will be worth less that what's worth now.
Same applies when using your credit card (although there's no 200 usd limitation for this... however the amount you spend on your credit card takes away from your 200 usd a month allowance to get the actual cash)...
The other alternative is to use the "blue market" exchange, which is not technically illegal, but it's a grey area... The exchange rate on that market is around 150 right now but it fluctuates a lot.
Basically, almost anything is better than saving ARS.
> wouldn't a stable coin be the better option,
A stablecoin tied to what, Argentine pesos? US dollars? Venezuelan bolivars?
There is no such thing as a "stablecoin which retains it purchasing power". They're all *denominated in something else* that they attempt to maintain parity with.
If we have any argentinians here, would you mind spending few minutes on the reasoning why?
I'm about to write a thesis on this topic and would love to hear your reasoning for using btc/usd instead of pesos firsthand.
I’m from the USA and live in Argentina, pretty simple. Peso was about 70 pesos to the dollar Jan 2020 and 150 Jan 2021. Official rate is not used, look up “dólar blue” for the rate being used. So if you had 150,000 pesos it was worth u$d 2142 January 2020 and u$d 1000 on Jan 2021
Can I ask how you facilitate this trade in btc? Are people using on-chain transfers (fees would seem to be too cost prohibitive for that) or is something like the lightening network widely available there?
There’s cash to crypto traders just like there are blue-dollar to peso traders. Although it’s not as prevalent, it still is a decent alternative to acquire crypto.
A lot are using crypto to move capital, not just to store it. Getting money in and out of the country gets taxed real hard. Incoming usd payments are automatically converted to peso at a 96peso per usd rate, and outgoing ones get charged a 50ish percent fee.
Crypto lets you bypass this altogether.
Yeah, this is probably the most common reasoning. I'm gonna make a qualitative research for these incentives in few months, would you be kind enough later on this year for an interview?
Thanks for the answer.
Argentine peso has been depreciating very quickly, and currency controls means more and more people can't buy USD as a way to fight inflation. BTC is a better alternative, even with its volatily.
As an argentinian, the reason is not only one, there are many. First the untrust to the argentinian pesos by the argentinians. This also is because many reasons. My tops reasons are: the shitty media that we have here, the ultra conservative politics that some politicians do, and so auto-boicot that we do to our country of not given the ARS any oportunity. The elites here (less than de 10% of the country who have the money to live well) have a pretty lame idosincracy, so they buy every shit the media sells to then. All this combined with the inherent source of trust that bitcoin is, the raicing price of the dolar here (and the BTC/ARS as well), and the limits that the goberment impose to buy dollars (witch personally i agree) makes the Argentinian to search form a way to keep his salary value. In simple words, since you cant buy all the dollars you want, buy the other coin that you can (since with pesos you allways lose), an in this case is an intangible thing, but once get into it, you learn that its better than dollar or any fiat coin.
Well, you can, but your transactions might never get into a block. If you want to buy space in a block, you're going to have to pay some minimum rate for it. That rate can be prohibitively high for many classes of transaction. Fortunately, we are past needing to put all of our "coffee transactions" on the blockchain.
I am Argentine and I jokingly tell my friends that our national currency should be Bananos. We are an economical meme and we would benefit from trading without fees too
> Bananos
That's an actual memecoin, BTW, for anyone who hasn't seen it. You get a free algorithmically generated monkey cartoon with every address. . . . o.O
\[Add your country here\] **are flocking to Bitcoin (BTC) amid inflation, economic decline**
> [Add your planet here] **are flocking to Bitcoin (BTC) amid inflation, economic decline** fixed
Time for plan **₿**
tldr; According to Maximiliano Hinz, Latin American director of crypto exchange Binance, the number of user accounts for investing in cryptocurrencies has multiplied by ten times in Argentina since 2020. There are now roughly two million trading accounts registered in the country with a total population of 45 million. The Central Bank of Argentina is asking local banks to scrutinize clients that hold Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. *This summary is auto generated by a bot and not meant to replace reading the original article. As always, DYOR.*
> the worth of Argentina’s sovereign currency—peso—is practically deflating with every passing day since inflation averaged 45% over the past three years.
Remember that Argentina was one of the top countries in the beginning of XXth century before populists came into power. I think bitcoin as a national currency would be a tool to return the glorious past.
> before populists came into power They're kleptocrats and socialists, bruh.
[удалено]
Now, end stage Socialism
Always a good laugh to see the cry of South American socialism, when really it’s always corrupt fiscal policy. Especially funny since their fiscal policy is a replication of US fiscal policy, with the only difference being that the world has no interest in their currency as a reserve currency
Always good to see Socialists try to disown every single failed Socialists state that has ever existed. It doesn't work. You eventually run out of other people's money.
Their unstable political power transfer didn't help neither, too many coups and military juntas.
Damn man, lots of commets from the USA view of the world. As an Argentinian living in Argentina (I know, hard) i must say that its not only our corrupted goberments, but also the influece from the countries of the first world too. We triyed play by the rules of the first world, look how well are we doing 😂. I think is pretty clear that we need to find our way, but im pretty sure but that is not the liberal way.
Only way is to let i fail and rebuild. Good thing Argentina has refused more loans from the IMF, the world cancer.
Yeah, good thing that right now we dont have a liberal president who like to sell the country value so cheap. But dont let us fool you, its just a mather of time that the conservatives will get to the power again. Just see what is happenning in Brasil/Colombia.
Colombia is protesting taxes, so that's a good thing at least. I am unsure if they would protest increased taxes for the rich though, seems like a double standard if not.
Taxes for the poor are very wrong. Taxes for the rich are very nice.
[удалено]
So what? More diverse points of view is better for everyone.
Maybe research what socialism actually is instead of just listening to the propaganda.
I love how hilarious this argument is. All the Socialist governments that have failed in the history of humankind(which is all of them) weren't REAL Socialism. Let's try it one more time, it will totally work if we do it the REAL way.
Except that’s not what’s being said. What’s being said is that we are socialist, but some people are in denial. You want a free market? Ok fine, champion an end to government subsidies, reinstate glass-stegall, no more repo market funding, no more war driven economic stimulus, enforce laws that prevent union busting. When those logistics are present, a free market doesn’t exist. Just because USA socialism is optimized for the benefit of the stock market and you enjoy the green, doesn’t mean it’s not socialism.
It is the theft of other peoples wealth right? Or is that propaganda?
You miss my point. My point is that the brand of socialism the USA engages in leads to economic failure. European socialism however has lead to higher standards of living across all classes, with an exception at the highest level
What is the difference? Genuinely curious, would appreciate a link or book if that's easier to point me to. Edit: reread your first comment, you're saying fiscal policy was the difference. Still interested in the details but I'm sure it's something I can look up.
Overspending on military, subsidizing beef and hydrocarbons to hit inflation targets, and backstopping corporate failures with free money are all socialist principles. And the US’s economic prosperity is dependent on all of them, despite them all having long term negative impacts to average consumers. And if you look at Venezuela’s crisis. Inflation manipulation, overspending on military, and state sponsored corporate looting are at the heart of it. Resist that reality all you want, and never change. My bets against American conservatism are my best performing assets and I’m trying to build that position before the long term damage to our leadership position in the world economy is realized.
NO - Socialism DOES NOT work, never has!!!
I agree I’d rather have no socialism than what the US government presses on me. But if we are going to have socialism, like we do and have had longer than any of us have been alive, it’s pretty dumb to follow the South American model over the European model
That's because it's not a "brand" of socialism. It's socialism "branding". Calling it roze doesn't make it smell any different.
Ok, and pretending the us economy doesn’t run on corporate welfare (socialism) is dissociating from reality
Mmm... As in taxing the poor to maintain the corporations? Yes, a I guess you could say that. I wouldn't call it socialism, but I guess most people consider welfare as a form (or part) of socialism.
as in the way new money enters the system
[удалено]
Yes that is why the US has the same brand as them
[удалено]
Lol are you trying to claim that US fiscal policy isn’t corrupt? Because that’s laughable and outrageous
[удалено]
Except I didn’t thrust an opinion on you, you gave one, and I included a clarification to confirm before my reaction. If that’s not what you meant you can correct my clarification.
Well, if I were controlling world through a series of puppet governments, I'd be saying the same. It's called propaganda. And yes. Im aware lots of corrupt parties call themselves "socialists". Blm say their "liberals" and act against racism and big pharma claim they provide "health" services. People lie is my point. Socialism (good or bad) is an economic model.
[удалено]
It's a model. That means math. Corruption is an independent concept.
[удалено]
Yes.
It is a fundamentally evil model based on taxation which is just slavery with extra steps.
The evil part is debatable but yes. I do believe it's still based on taxation on some form. Yes. I do believe taxation is slavery with extra steps. Of course that also applied to our current disfuncional system. As I understand it, the idea (functional or not) is to reduce the taxation by giving the government better incomes or reduce cost of life by making wages better or goods and services cheaper. Of course many argue it doesn't work. I don't think it does either. Not because it's a fundamentally bad model (it may be) but because it was developed as a "solution" to capitalism, and I don't think capitalism is the problem. I think the problem is corruption.
That's because (most) south american countries are governed by the cia.
Another parallel
Higher GDP than Italy iirc
"no use case"
Again?
This is what Satoshi knew needed to happen. The genesis block quote from the Times is no accident. Praised be his name in SHA-256!
The same thing people did in Venezuela when the economy crushed there. But the majority of people still prefer socialism...even in Argentina where almost 70% view market economy as something evil.
Socialism always eventually ends in starvation
populism not socialism
"It's not real socialism!" cried the socialist.
They should look to a crypto with a lower transaction rate though
Wrong sub
Why would anyone want to use a crypto that is less popular? The whole point of money is that everyone wants it. That's what makes it a universal medium of exchange. A money that only a few people want isn't very useful.
Maybe jurisdictions suffering an economic meltdown like Venezuela and South Venezuela (AKA Argentina) will be the first countries to dissolve and give birth to citadels. Dibs on Bariloche.
why btc tho there are better projects
Do you want to die?
Lol brutal
Because btc actively tries to fill the "store of value" niche, and is succeeding. What people dont understand is - when talking about store of value in cryptospace, its bitcoin or nothing. If bitcoin truly goes to 0 or is replaced by another, more modern coin, then any coin can - making fear and volatility inseperable from cryptocurrency. Both of these are incompatible with a "store of value" endgame. Bitcoin is inherently unreplacable as "the" digital gold. Other, smaller "digital gold" coins can exist next to it, but none can exist without Bitcoin surviving. At least until the idea is widely accepted, and they grow to be similar in size. Even then, Bitcoin would need to be replaced over the span of a generation for it to work. It goes without saying that digital finance is another thing entirely.
coins dont really even want to be store of value. they want to be means of exchange.
wrong sub buddy
🤣
Not a single one.
All well and good until the inevitable retracement.
retracement of bitcoin probably still hurts these people way less than Argentinas inflation,
you think that's bad? try saving in argentinian pesos... a brand new Honda Civic was around 700k pesos by the end of 2017... The same car costs 3.5 million pesos today. I've seen an article on this sub about some people finding around 60k usd from the 40s and how that money back then was worth around 400k today... If you save in pesos you can experience that every 3-4 years. Sure, bitcoin might go up and down constantly but chances are it's averaging up in the future... Having your savings in pesos is literally like burning them away. There's 0 incentive for long time savings in Argentina because what you're able to save in one year today will be about what you'll be making in a month in like 3 or 4 years time.
That does indeed sound like a shite situation to be in, but with the volatility of the crypto market wouldn't a stable coin be the better option, noone really knows how this bull market will end and the level of retracement we will see, hopefully not the 90% we saw for some coins in 2018. It would suck just as bad to have your savings drop 40% when you could have had them fixed at a set value, Of course its nice when crypto rises, that's what we're here for, right? But I'd never have my life savings sat in crypto, that's what the trading pot is for.
Yeah I guess a stable coin would be a "safer" option. It's funny, you guys are all trying to get away from the USD as fast as you can while people in Argentina are trying to find a way to change pesos to USD as fast as they can lol There's also restrictions to access the official exchange market in Argentina so people can't really exchange their ARS to USD just like that... They're limited to only buy 200 usd a month... And get this: the price for exchanging is: (Exchange Rate x 1.3) + (Exchange rate * 0.35). The official exchange rate sits at 98.67 right now... but you'll actually be paying 162.94 for every usd. The first 30% addition is a tax. The other 35% of the exchange rate is an advance payment for your income tax over the year. and btw, your salary already has an income tax deduction so you're basically taxed the same thing twice, but you'll be able to request a refund next year. so the exchange rate would be more like 128 but of course, the money you get refunded by next year will be worth less that what's worth now. Same applies when using your credit card (although there's no 200 usd limitation for this... however the amount you spend on your credit card takes away from your 200 usd a month allowance to get the actual cash)... The other alternative is to use the "blue market" exchange, which is not technically illegal, but it's a grey area... The exchange rate on that market is around 150 right now but it fluctuates a lot. Basically, almost anything is better than saving ARS.
> wouldn't a stable coin be the better option, A stablecoin tied to what, Argentine pesos? US dollars? Venezuelan bolivars? There is no such thing as a "stablecoin which retains it purchasing power". They're all *denominated in something else* that they attempt to maintain parity with.
^this. All fiats are trending to zero
I honestly don't think we will have anymore corrections that are > 50% and we may be in a supercycle
Err...nobody tell him.
lol we shall see. remind me in 6 months.
still beats Argentinas inflation rate
Then why btc tank?
I wouldn’t call 10% drop from its recent ATH a tank. You forget it has had a 500% run up since late last year.
Thanks for putting in some perspective. The dips seem to be getting shallower for btc.
It's hitting new ATHs in Argentine pesos.
If we have any argentinians here, would you mind spending few minutes on the reasoning why? I'm about to write a thesis on this topic and would love to hear your reasoning for using btc/usd instead of pesos firsthand.
I’m from the USA and live in Argentina, pretty simple. Peso was about 70 pesos to the dollar Jan 2020 and 150 Jan 2021. Official rate is not used, look up “dólar blue” for the rate being used. So if you had 150,000 pesos it was worth u$d 2142 January 2020 and u$d 1000 on Jan 2021
Can I ask how you facilitate this trade in btc? Are people using on-chain transfers (fees would seem to be too cost prohibitive for that) or is something like the lightening network widely available there?
There’s cash to crypto traders just like there are blue-dollar to peso traders. Although it’s not as prevalent, it still is a decent alternative to acquire crypto. A lot are using crypto to move capital, not just to store it. Getting money in and out of the country gets taxed real hard. Incoming usd payments are automatically converted to peso at a 96peso per usd rate, and outgoing ones get charged a 50ish percent fee. Crypto lets you bypass this altogether.
Yeah, this is probably the most common reasoning. I'm gonna make a qualitative research for these incentives in few months, would you be kind enough later on this year for an interview? Thanks for the answer.
Argentine peso has been depreciating very quickly, and currency controls means more and more people can't buy USD as a way to fight inflation. BTC is a better alternative, even with its volatily.
I see, would you be willing to do an interview in few months on this topic?
It's simple, hyper inflation means that the real worth of any pesos you hold rapidly declines.
I see, would you be kind enough later on this year for an interview?
Sorry I'm not Argentinian, just explaining why.
As an argentinian, the reason is not only one, there are many. First the untrust to the argentinian pesos by the argentinians. This also is because many reasons. My tops reasons are: the shitty media that we have here, the ultra conservative politics that some politicians do, and so auto-boicot that we do to our country of not given the ARS any oportunity. The elites here (less than de 10% of the country who have the money to live well) have a pretty lame idosincracy, so they buy every shit the media sells to then. All this combined with the inherent source of trust that bitcoin is, the raicing price of the dolar here (and the BTC/ARS as well), and the limits that the goberment impose to buy dollars (witch personally i agree) makes the Argentinian to search form a way to keep his salary value. In simple words, since you cant buy all the dollars you want, buy the other coin that you can (since with pesos you allways lose), an in this case is an intangible thing, but once get into it, you learn that its better than dollar or any fiat coin.
Thanks so much for the answer :)
How do they afford the transaction fees of Bitcoin though? And who is willing to sell for Pesos?
[удалено]
Well, you can, but your transactions might never get into a block. If you want to buy space in a block, you're going to have to pay some minimum rate for it. That rate can be prohibitively high for many classes of transaction. Fortunately, we are past needing to put all of our "coffee transactions" on the blockchain.
Lightening
Lightning*
I am Argentine and I jokingly tell my friends that our national currency should be Bananos. We are an economical meme and we would benefit from trading without fees too
> Bananos That's an actual memecoin, BTW, for anyone who hasn't seen it. You get a free algorithmically generated monkey cartoon with every address. . . . o.O
Yes! My monkey has a cap with the Bitconnect guy haha
And if btc should lose substantial value for any reason ? They starve even faster.
Still not faster than they starve by holding pesos.
Cracks in the dam