Bitcoin Forum

"Mauricio Macri was sworn as the new president of Argentina on December 10, 2015. He confronts enormous economic challenges. He received a country with an inflation rate estimated at between 15 to 27 percent, foreign reserves at a ten-year low, plus a decade-long series of struggles with holders of defaulted debt. One of his highest priorities is to grapple with the nation’s currency controls. Also, he has vowed to end corruption, poverty and drug trafficking.

Interestingly, President Macri has just created a new national Ministry of Modernization. And, he immediately appointed as the Minister of Modernization none other than the man who organized and participated in the First Bitcoin Forum in Buenos Aires, Mr. Andrés Ibarra."

Full Article: https://news.bitcoin.com/argentinas-new-president-might-just-bitcoin-supporter/

If Argentina implements Bitcoin at a regional level it will have a HUGE impact on the market since it could be a very rich and powerful country if it's properly administrated with many resources. Plus it can set the the tone for others to follow. What do you guys think?

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mtnsaa

I have heard that Argentina has a rather lively BTC market among the technologically minded.  I know two people who go there fairly regularly and bring BTC to sell (for a substantial premium due to Argentine capital controls).

Their new president could do a number of things to help his country.  Loosening up silly regulations and controls would help.  And a friend of Bitcoin would help not only him, but all of us here...

He has a big job ahead, Kirchner really messed up the country.

I'm not from Argentina but from a near-by country so I'm aware about Argentina relation with Bitcoin. Xapo's CEO for example is argentinian and as you said due to devaluation it was highly adopted by many people (not by the mainstream but still). But this intrigues me because I know Macri is keen to implement "modern" ideas as he was mayor of Buenos Aires not long ago.

There's definitely a strong connection since that guy is one of the Bitcoin pioneer sin Argentina. The new president better get with the times and realize the fact that his country is only going to stand the test of time if they get on Bitcoin early on. They are free to end up as they always do again if they ignore to do so tho.

Can't see any large countries like Argentina pushing the currency out at regional levels any time soon.

I imagine that a country in financial trouble will ne the first to do so. I thought a few years ago that Iceland might look at it, but I guess not...

If he is a bit coin supporter that's great news for us

At this stage, any leaders with power are a boost.

It's just waiting for one of these people in power to make a move.

Imagine what can start there, a new Bitcoin implementation at a regional level. That's more than huge mainly to the fact that it certainly makes a big wave in the economy and it will surely shouts the word Bitcoin to all those who don't know it even though Argentina is one of the early adopted countries in this field. Many (other countries) will surely take interest if this happens.

If a country adopts bitcoin as its currency what's it going to use for cash?

If he's a supporter of anything that brings freedom and liberty to the people of Argentina then he's probably going to die in a plane crash in the next 12 months unless he changes his ways........ :'(

A large country needs to step up to the plate and buy like a Billion USD worth of BTC (and not saying they are doing so.)
Then they need to put a ton of money into development as well, so they can get it ready to function as a currency.
Till then, it can be a store of value for the Country as clearly Bitcoin can't handle the TPS yet.

Well I wasn't thinking they will actually adopt Bitcoin as national currency which is rather over the top, but they may implement it somehow at some level for exchanges, digital payments for services or government taxes and things like that.

There must be poor people in Argentina who don't own phones or computers. They could only deal with traditional fiat. There are also stories of blackouts in parts of Argentina over the years. Debit cards would be as useless as Bitcoins during those times, fiat would be the only viable option.

Argentina using Bitcoin on the same level as debit cards would be the most I could envisage it doing, but I don't think it will happen soon.

Well it's not all or nothing of course, but if they introduce Bitcoin as an alternative and become a Bitcoin friendly country that would be a huge push for people to notice. Argentina has a long history of parallel currencies because of how unstable their economy either on short or long periods. That's why Bitcoin flourished there in the first place and many entrepreneurs got interested in it, like Wences Casares from Xapo.

A Bitcoin backed peso in Argentina's case.

I am Spanish and use to talk in exchanges chat a lot with people from Argentina (also México and Venezuela) so I can affirm that there is a quite lively community of Bitcoin and crypto users in general in those countries.

This gives hope and is great news to read. Thanks for sharing.

The real debate is not if Argentina adopts Bitcoin as the local currency (that would be crazy and not sure if it can actually work, Bitcoin price could be easily manipulated by other countries or Argentina itself if they buy a huge share). What I can envision happening is the government backing Bitcoin alternative payment method. From paying parking tickets to fees or small taxes, that sort of thing.

You could pay those with regular cash or pesos, but just giving people this option for new generations could be amazing for the development of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin offers no help to government control over economy... So even if he is a supporter I am sure he will not use bitcoin for political reason....

But maybe he can introduce it in public places, like paying for parking fees, tolls, etc, that sort of things, you guys are thinking too big for now hehe. The idea would be a country accepting BTC as method of payment for certain things, tolls. It won't replace the local currency or be mandatory, just an option for people to get more familiar with it considering Argentina has already a very active Bitcoin community.

This is a very good news. A supporter of bitcoin become President of a country and his first choice in a new Ministry (for more named with a name full of meaning) is a pure bitcoiner. Cannot be better. As for the role of bitcoin in all this story, according to me can be its acceptance as a national currency beside the peso. But it will be hard to become reality. If made will be a very revolution in the true meaning of this word. Will have a big impact in all the countries and will be the first true experiment with bitcoin used as a legal money within a country. If can be made something other for bitcoin in Argentine is only that because with actual legislation bitcoin is considered money but not national currency. So if will have the courage to make it legal currency (national money) will be the maximum that can be made. Will have the courage? Only him know that.

Thats good news indeed but there are over 200 countries in the world, we don't need any single of them, we need most of them :) thats enough

queitly awesome,i hope that was true,and trusted news. Macri will bring new changes to Argentina,and whole open an world eyes,that peopla should accpet bitcoin soon,at least they support or not have bad opinion about bitcoin.
and i love this one : Blockchain the Weapon to Fight Corruption
Mr. Macri in his inauguration speech delivered at Congress laid out the three main objectives of his administration: to fight drug trafficking, strive to achieve zero poverty, and tackle corruption.
Obviously, the most critical of these three objectives is to defeat corruption in Argentina. If corruption cannot be reined in, the battles to eradicate poverty and drug trafficking are lost at the outset.
To succeed, the Macri administration may wish to consider using Bitcoin and its blockchain as a weapon to crack down on corruption.

Great read! I believe that at some point most of the politicians will be favorable to bitcoin!

well good news for bitcoin comunity,even they're not accepted bitcoin officially as their currency,only with support bitcoin is enough for bitcoin's reputable and image

Well we have to start from somewhere right?!
Maybe Argentina is this place from where a bigger adoption will start. If this should happen I think Brazil could be the next country to follow.Let's hope for a domino effect. ;D

I don't know why, but these times only (potential) good news are coming (apart from the fake Satoshi). There couldn't have a better South America country to be Bitcoin-friendly. Argentina has a sort of "prestige" among South America countries since it's among one of the most developped, richest and powerful country of this part of the world. If they do some pro-Bitcoin regulations and his economy restart, some surrunding countries could try to do the same, and a new hotpoint of Bitcoin would be born :).

if we can reach current value without the sustenance of basically the majority of all countries imagines if even only one goes full bitcoin, the value would touch the sky

good news like this when the price is already increasing can boost it even more, i hope they do not regulate it too much, bitcoin should remain free

Even if he would be a big supporter of Bitcoin and even if he would like to introduce Bitcoin as an offical (co-)currency of Argentina, then he will not do it. Bitcoin is not practical in the current economic situation of Argentina. It would make more sense to introduce an own decentralized crypto coin with an total unlimited amount of coins and a limited yearly inflation of 1% for example.

More and more politicians are getting heated up for Bitcoin and attracted by its technology! This is definitely great news and very good for our adoption and future!

Let's not forget that the guy that created Xapo (Wences Caesares) is also from argentina and said that he saw the true value in Bitcoin when he saw his family become a victim of massive national currency devaluation due hyper inflation and goverment control in the ways they could move money.

That are great news for bitcoin community users of Argentina. I don't expect that bitcoin will be used at the same level of its national currency, i only want that they don't stop the growing community of users and don't stop the new startups that work with bitcoin with strange bitlicenses. Argentina needs a lot of reforms, and blockchain applications could help them to fight against the corruption that they have.

This is indeed great news, however I think you guys are mostly missing the point...

Argentina has a small but thriving bitcoin community because citizens have been trying to get a hold of anything that isn't the peso, as holding onto that local currency has for the last few years been the equivalent of losing money, due to the extremely high inflation rate.

As a result, demand for the USD was so high that a black market emerged, and indeed to this day you can see the rate for the Dólar Blue/ Paralelo published in newspapers.  For example, it was that hard to get USD due to the demand being so high that when the official exchange rate was 9.50 pesos to the dollar, you could buy on the black market for 16 pesos a dollar.  And people did it- out of fear from hyperinflation, which the country has experienced many times.

The same was happening with BTC- you had to buy at the dólar blue rate for the same reasons.

Now what Argentina needs is plenty of foreign investment, and the thriving butcoin community that has been developing there would seem to be a step ahead of most of the world.  I think what they are hoping for is to nourish the market by giving start-ups the much needed supportive environment they need to thrive; this activity and the business it brings with it will hopefully lead to a brighter future for the people of Argentina -and in the meantime mitigate peso fluctuation- with the added benefit of much-needed transparency in certain situations.

Cashless society.    

A lot of places do not accept cash nowadays and you can only pay with credit/debit cards.      

All you need as a shop is a cellphone with Internet to confirm a transaction.

Or you could back your currency by Bitcoin but you'd need good currency control then.

Exactly, just implementing it slowly as another method of payment and sponsored by the government would be huge for Bitcoin. On the other hand I must say the Bitcoin also has some deep roots in illegal activities so maybe it can face some resistance if the idea is fighting corruption and money laundering.

I am argentinean, my only and true comment is



Stop Dreaming and get real


http://stuppid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/baby-unicorn-main.jpg

It's an amazing piece of news, and even tho i would be happier if some other country with better economy was involved in this, Argentina will do for now.
Maybe we can whiteness what adopting bitcoin could really do in real life country experiment. I just hope they don't over reach and set a bad example.

cheers

Lol, thread is over!

I'm not from Argentina but very close if you know what I mean ;) However I still think Argentina has one of the most active Bitcoin communities, it's just that the title is misleading as most of the articles you see today in every news site.

What do you think about Bitcoin as a refuge from Argentina's peso volatility? I've never understood that because if there's something more volatile than the peso is Bitcoin value!

so many comment above me is asking about the truth of this news,and any argentinan not agree with this,and i also think this thread is over,and may someone report this to mod,and i hope not many people have wrong opinion about this news.

Hey it's not complete BS if you read the article itself, we were just speculating about a future implementation of Bitcoin in Argentina, even if its small. But the article itself focus on how Bitcoin is relevant within the inner circle of the President, nothing more than that, and that Macri himself might know about it.

We have many unknown miners and supporters. They wanna stay unknown so their president may not speak out about Bitcoin for too long.

It's always helpful when they have a president supporting Bitcoin. Life just gets easier and easier every single day. Soon, things will be very better for us supporters and adopters.

Not many recent news regarding this at all. I think it's clear Bitcoin will never be adopted at any governmental or corporate level, it's just too tainted and there were just too many scandals and black market activities. It will of course survive as a very valid storage of wealth and commodity I think.

By that we can conclude that not many people in the world are technologically minded. That's sad.

OP, thanks for sharing. But the article is far fetched and based on nothing.

Even if he was Bitcoin enthusiast himself, there's zero chance he'll implement Bitcoin on any level. If he's goal is to restore faith in national currency and keep control over it, then he may be tempted to restrict BTC trading (at least temporarily) to prevent people to dump Peso for BTC to avoid inflation.

If he's truly positive towards BTC, then the best we could hope for is that he'll opt to keep some bitcoins as part of foreign reserve, something that was suggested for Barbados (https://coinreport.net/economists-suggest-central-bank-of-barbados-hold-small-bitcoin-reserve/)