Bitcoin Forum

After the default in Argentina, their gov could be on a perfect position to implement Bitcoin as a national currency.


But first the president Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) needs to know about this option, and the benefits of doing such incredible change.


We should make an international campaign/effort to convince her that this would be the best to do, and we should do it fast before the CITIBANK/JP MORGAN/FED take care of their debt.



http://www.coindesk.com/argentinas-debt-default-good-bitcoin/

Checks name *bitcoinpropaganda". Yep, seems about right.

I very much doubt even argentina is going to be using bitcoin any time soon, though it's use may grow there, but bitcoin is hardly a stable currency at the moment either.

If you don't have something useful to say please do not say anything at all.

http://www.coindesk.com/argentinas-debt-default-good-bitcoin/

Sounded pretty useful from here.

The odds of this happening are so close to zero that it makes a btc address collision seem likely.

An authoritarian, socialist like the President of Argentina will do nothing that takes her control and power away which is what this idea would do. Her empty statements about helping the poor are nothing more than platitudes to appease the masses and maintain her power.

It would be a benefit for Argentina but won't happen.

Yes, but it wont happen. You could use many examples of where bitcoin can be used for the greater good, but it wont happen. If it was going to be used in Argentina it could be used all over the world, but it just wont happen.

Sorry, but the headline just sounded like propoganda or fanatacism to me.

Their government would never do this, a large percentage of their people might though. As well as the people of Ecuador, Egypt, Pakistan, Venezuela, Belize, Cuba, Cyprus, Greece, Jamaica, and Ukraine

All nations facing bankruptcy and therefore devaluation of their national currency.

Related: Bitcoin in Argentina (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e__m-w4N7NI)

Many will see it as an opportunity, but we all know governments and banks will always discourage its use until they find a way to benefit themselves.

Governments discourage a lot of things, pot smoking, prostitution, culture sharing (slandered by governments as "piracy"). Free-thinking people generally don't give a damn.

Any law prohibiting individuals from dealing in cryptocurrency is fundamentally an unenforceable joke.

Please, governments of the world, give us more reasons to laugh at you. We hardly need them, but they sure are fun.

Very interesting idea really but to make such great change in one country is not easy, it requires changing a lot lows, preparing people for this, informing public, bank regulations, financial regulations...
Of course, first you will need to get support from politicians who probably rarely using even simple email and it's question how much they can understand Bitcoin concept.
I really doubt such idea is possible now. 

Do citizens in Argentina know about bitcoin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e__m-w4N7NI

This would result in Argentinians benefiting, not the government.
The government usually has its best interest at heart while taking decisions.

They don't need to prohibit, they just need to "regulate" it as they say. In other words, adapt it to their schemes so that nothing changes for them and they keep profiting.

This wont happen for a few reasons,one South America is trying to get more power and to join bitcoin would just weaken their hand.
The force from the other countries alone would make them think twice.

Think your best bet would be New Zealand but even then I am most likely way off.

So many disillusioned people… A big country like Argentina would never give up control of the money supply.

Not unless the people rose up and took control of it themselves.

Bitcoin is like the tide coming in. Small pools form randomly across the beach and grow in size until they become one with the oceans.

The more people that use BITCOIN the more stable it will be, ALSO when the rewards start dropping further this is another good sign, more stability.

I can forsee some very small countries will adopt Bitcoin, and slowly, bigger country will adopt it.

I doubt that this kind of adoption with official sanction will happen anytime soon
Argentina is too deeply steeped in the traditional financial system for this to happen easily

http://www.coindesk.com/argentina-most-likely-adopt-bitcoin/

Actually, I consider it more of an opportunity for the people of Argentina. The benefit is for them, not "for Bitcoin."

This would be a good time for an infographic in Spanish to circulate around Argentinian social media, maybe listing the benefits of Bitcoin.
Even a small flyer campaign; possibly throw up a site with more info/easy tutorials for the less technologically apt.

The less technologically apt are also the most likely to get their bitcoins lost or stolen. Encouraging them to buy bitcoins at this stage is a great way of worsening Bitcoin's reputation.

Also, Bitcoin's volatility is not very attractive to people trying to flee an unstable currency like the Argentine peso, and yet another reason to give Bitcoin a bad name if the price tanks.

Bitcoin has to be adopted at its own pace by people who understand the risks involved. By forcing it on others you're only doing it harm in the long run.

Since when is offering people info on the benefits/risks of Bitcoin considered forcing

Yeah, "forcing" was a bad word choice, sorry about that, but then again the Bitcoin community at large tends to be rather pushy, which is usually not very appreciated.

Bitcoin is not completely unknown in Argentina, and in fact has a rather large users community (compared to other countries in the region at least), some of which are very active in promoting its use. I've seen some go a bit too aggressively about it though, like giving out waiters' tips in Bitcoin paper wallets, or talking in general about it rather disingenuously, overstating its benefits and ignoring its risks. Because of that attitude people in argentina forums, as an example, are immediately dismissive of anything Bitcoin-related.

I like the idea of more widespread educational material, but I'm a bit wary of any kind of "in your face" promotional campaign.

I think people who tip waiters (who don't know about bitcoin) in bitcoin are assholes. I also know that way too many bitcoiners gloss over the risks. What I think is beneficial is moving in the direction of making Bitcoin more user friendly via third party apps, easy to use wallets, things like Trezor; as well as easy-to-read, readily available educational materials to those who are curious/want to learn.

Do you understand the current issue of hyperinflation in Argentina though? Bitcoin might not be THE solution, but only time will tell. All I know is if I was losing value on my currency every day I'd be looking for an alternative store of value (I mean to also imply commodities)

Agreed, but with Bitcoin's track record this year (-50%) it's looking even worse than the Argentine peso (25% annual inflation, although I guess it could go higher now). With those figures Argentines looking for a more stable store of value are far more likely to put their money in dollars, euros or gold than in Bitcoin, and understandably so.

Too awesome to be the truth

Down 50% from a relatively absurd plateau. Even after the crash at around $350 a btc that's up from around $97 a coin this time last year (August 2013). Considering we're now at what seems to be a relatively stable 600. If you bought when bitcoin peaked there's a good chance you'd have the same issue with any commodity or currency, not to be rude.

Not only this but who is going to sell Bitcoins for Peso's which are almost certainly going to continue to lose value in the short term? Investors are already going to lock in a loss just to get their assets into currency someone would trade bitcoins for. Once they've got their holdings into a more stable currency why add additional risk in trading again for bitcoins?

People in this sub keep bringing that up, but that's not really an issue. Plenty of people sell BTC for pesos, including myself. Sure, pesos are worth less every day, but you underestimate how much people in Argentina need them for their day to day life. I need pesos to pay for my rent, I need pesos to buy my groceries, I need pesos to pay my taxes, etc. Whenever I get the chance I spend bitcoins, but we're far from being able to pay for everything with them. Until then, pesos are a necessary evil.

Why would anyone sell bitcoin to buy pesos??

The article does not properly focus on the way the US supreme Court has chosen to let financial interests go before democracy for the Argentinian people.

No people of the world can be held responsible for paying back public debt because doing so is equivalent to slavery. Only if the people want should it pay and this will be reflected in the market interest rate for the country.

What this case has shown is that New York and the United States deserves to be weakened as a financial center as it is not to be trusted.
Bitcoin as a transaction medium gets around the anti-democratic blockade that is designed to enslave this people.

This is the core issue and why bitcoin is such an ideal platform without the slavery imposed by the US jurisdictional control over NY banks.

The article doesn't properly focus on the fact that the Argentinian government borrowed money, agreed to pay it back at a certain rate, and then failed to do so.  At the same time also agreeing to let U.S. Courts decide the issue.

The issue is simple:  Argentina has been ruled by authoritarian deadbeats for a very long time who are more interested in raping the Argentinian people and maintaining their own power than doing what is right for Argentina and her people.  They are more than willing to agree to one thing and then try to change the rules later and then complain about it being "evil financial interests" or some other scapegoat in order to distract the people from the fact that they are doing things only for their own power.

The Argentinian government can not be trusted to do what they agree to do.  Anyone who loans money to them is extremely stupid because they have shown repeatedly that they want to take someone else's money and never repay it.

I don't think "slavery" means what you think it means.

Argentina was never forced to do any of this.  They voluntarily agreed to borrow money and then failed to repay it. 

I think it is more likely that the government would create their own alt coin than adopt bitcoin

Any country could be the first one to officially adopt bit coin. Until someone actually does though any such article is hyperbole. We don't need that to push bit coin forward. We only need to make our case in a well reasoned manner and let things unfold.

I really don't know if Bitcoin would be 'compatible' as a nation-wide currency. Especially countries that suffer from economic problems need to have the ability of pulling certain levers and knobs in order to influence the market or stabilize the economy. Since Bitcoin is decentralized and an inherently unregulated currency, this won't be possible. But the idea is bold!

I read news saying the bank account of the only BTC exchange in there is closed without reasons. The people there may be scare that there is no exchange to change BTC to fiat. Holding BTC seems holding nothing.

Nonsense. The ability to manipulate the currency is exactly why Argentina is currently in this predicament.

FTFY.

Because a nation would select a 'currency' for itself which it does not control, has no control, and has its security based off of machines outside of its boundaries.

Is this a joke?

Pretty much this. As much faith I have in Bitcoin, something like this will not happen in the near future at least. (Fingers crossed it does happen though of course)

QFT.

Manipulation of currency causes the problems Argentina is facing.

you thinking about Argentina adopt a coin that can't be manipulated or confiscated?

No monetary inflation, and no way to take the saving from people?


Really, you know nothing about them

Argentina is attempting to deflect its miserable financial decisions by blaming the very people they borrowed money from with full knowledge of the terms it agreed to. The terms which they broke again and again.

Not only did the loan 'restructuring' allowed them to steal half the loans they were obliged to pay back, but now they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for any excuses including nationalism to anti-US sentiment in order to deflect blame.

Imagine if some one borrowed money from you, you provided loan relief that essentially gave away half your investment to them for free, then they refused to pay back the rest.

That's called theft.

Fact is, Argentina borrowed money knowing full well it must be paid back with interest. The loan lenders did not demand anything more than what was initially agreed to on the contract, and even lost out through the generous loan restructuring agreement that gave away half the loan for free, which can either be called charity, or theft. Argentina decided they are not obliged to follow the mutual agreement.

They were mistaken.

The Argentine Peso is worthless and has been a joke for the last three decades.  They default on their debt anytime the economy sneezes.  Bitcoin would be quite a boon for the Argentines ...

But I won't loan them any! :-)

The Euro is setup very similar to what you are describing. The European countries give up control of their currency to the ECB in exchange for having a more widely adopted and more stable currency.

If Argentina were to use bitcoin as their national currency it would be for the same reasons. I do however doubt that any country will do this anytime soon.

it's too much of a gamble, even for a country like argentina.. besides, i doubt their population doesn't have the capacity to use it as the country's main currency.

Semantics is how most people try to play that game. Are you really going to compare the geographically clustered union of nations on a continent with electronic currency that is completely outside of their sphere of influence?

Talk about naive.

There are countries which have effectively dollarized their economy as well.
If countries can adopt USD, why not BTC?

They wouldn't have gone from maybe the richest country of the 19th century to bankruptcy if they have as habit make good economic decisions.


So no way.

Bitcoin is not considered as currency by the mainstream economy, because they are not backed by a central bank, among other issues.

And pick a coin that can be destroyed by Gox or by the PBOC is just too stupid, even for the argentinian parameters.

A boon for Argentines???  How could they adopt Bitcoin? For all practical purposes almost no one there owns any and no one could get their hands on any without selling most of their assets. They would be crazy to borrow in Bitcoin because it will be much more costly to pay back in the future.

No one would have the money to pay anyone else for any service or asset. The economy would be dead.

They'd be dirt poor for ever after.

I agree with your assessment of Argentina's integrity with respect to these loans.

I'd be interested in your analysis of the fact that the USA is refusing to return Germany's gold.

Bitcoin needs to be a more stable currency before ANY country will even think about adopting it

Its too soon for BTC to become an official currency. 99.999999% of the people in Argentina are probably not capable if using BTC because of technology limits, personal age, location etc. BTC needs a lot of software app development to make transactions mindless and super super easy for even the oldest non-tech person. Its a couple years away from everyone being able to easily use it.

maybe bitcoin will be very popular in 2 years.

Check Ecuador. They were using US Dollar for some years now, and they survived

Interest rates, reserve requirements for banks, etc are levers which will still be available to them.

Seems very radical.
Everyone in Argentina would need access to it,
not be scared to death of it,
many would need training in it,
there would need to be special groups set up to help counteract the influx of scammers and con artists.

Would a country need it's people on side to change it's currency, or is it just a government decision?

You could have physical bitcoins/ satoshis circulated. This would solve the problem of access/ training.

Where would they come from? Argentina can't produce Bitcoins, physical or otherwise, out of thin air to circulate.

This is a fantasy.  Bitcoin is a deflationary currency. Argentina tried a relatively stable currency and got hammered as its neighbors allowed their currencies to depreciate.  Maybe the people of Argentina will see bitcoin as electronic gold and hold some in hopes of using it as a store of value, but offical adoption is not going to happen, unless maybe you have an inside track to be the next dictator of Argentina.

Argentina would have to buy them.
You will have to do the same things that you do when you dollarize an economy.

These could be easily counterfeited and would remove the ledger system (blockchain) that bitcoin uses. Most people would have no way to know for sure that there is a balance in the physical coin, nor would they know what it would look like. This would just open up too many possibilities for scams.

They wouldn't peg to bitcoin… too much volatility.

Buy them with what? Sell half their assets? 90% of the population probably has no extra assets they can sell. They rely on salaries which cannot be paid because they have to be paid in non-existent Bitcoin.

You can borrow dollars. You can't borrow Bitcoins.  Get real.

If you can borrow dollars, you definitely can convert them to bitcoins.  ;D

You win. Let's see you convince them of this.

The citizens generally do not have extra assets, but the employers likely do.

If Argentina ever make Bitcoin official that would be great propaganda and it will ensure that Bitcoin keeps living and raising in its price!

That would be awesome, but im afraid its too good to be true. But, if they have heads on their shoulders, they would at least look at it..

Ecuador has decided a state-backed digital currency might help it to avoid a financial crisis.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/07/ecuador_follows_bitcoin_ban_with_digicurrency_proposal/

Of course it would be great...but cant believe in it...too awesome to be the truth

agree with you

I heard Andreas Anotonopoulos talk about Argentina and how close they are to their 3rd fiat crash. I really hope they could give bitcoins a try at least. But it's sort of farfetched for now, imagine the elderly etc, they won't have any idea what they are doing.

It will be great if Argentina give chance to Bitcoin.
In their current financial situation, they have nothing to loose and a lot to gain.
But, I don't think they are ready for this step.

I think it's a good time for them to try, as they are facing big financial problems. This could help them

why dont they use the US dollar first right?

since adopting US dollar is easier just like in the zimbabwe


but if they really use bitcoin as their country currency, i can foresee bitcoin price shoot pass 10,000 dollar each

It is quite possible that some people in Argentina are stashing up with Bitcoins and now are trying to encourage someone in their government to make it official there because they are aware of fact that they can earn lot of fiat and they are trying to exploit situation there.

The Argentinian monetary disaster will be good for the people as they will become more aware of Bitcoin and what it means.
So I feel Bitcoin will gain popularity fast.

That the Argentinian government would adopt Bitcoin? ... Never
They are "Regulators". They will never surrender any of their power (specially economic) to anybody or anything.
So if their Peso gets so devaluated and it becomes worthless, they could probably adopt another strong Fiat currency like US Dollar or Euro.
Or keep on fooling their people by issuing an "electronic currency" of their own like Ecuador's president is trying to do.

Regards,

Stashing up bitcoins/dollars is what I expect everybody in Argentina is doing now. :P

i sure hope they don't plan on doing more than 7 transactions per sec.
cause that's all bitcoin suppports right now.

I don't see any country adopting a currency as "Official" if they can't control it

That's what I would do. Even just rumors can make Bitcoin price jump. We will wait and see. It seems like that's whole point of Bitcoin right now :D

Rumours (like China banning bitcoin) can drive prices down as well.  :D

Of course, it already did once. But let's stay positive :)

The effect of rumours is usually short term. So to that extent, it gets reversed when the rumours are proved false.

It could maybe work as a way of using Bitcoin as a countries reserve, but making it the FIAT currency won't work. It's not as easy to use in everyday life and many people still have or are going to want to rely on regular bank notes. But it would be a great thing for Bitcoin and I'd welcome that decision, even if it was just in order to see that experiment play out!

Sure, but people who are good at trading Bitcoins can use that rumor to earn some extra BTC on it.

Yes, but if you are in a long term hold position, you won't get impacted.
The people who lose out are those who rush out to sell at the first hint of bad news.

governments dont use gold as a currency because if they try gold price will raise too much.
so btc wont be used as a currency just the same reason.
no country will do this , every goverment demands a controllable currency ,why should they use another currency while they can use their own currency.
btc is good for customers not for goverments.
cyprus crysis raised btc because customers rushed to btc not goverment.

Even in this unlikely case, they probably wouldn't adopt bitcoin per se.
They'd most likely peg their currency to it for the reasons you mention (like pegging your currency to a basket of trade weighted other currencies)..

That is true. Anything whose supply is finite is deflationary in nature (vs other goods). So governments would be uncomfortable using it as currency.
That is why the gold-backed Bretton Woods system failed.

Many posts about a country not wanting to surrender its currency, makes you wonder if the Euro exists.

Very interesting idea really but to make such great change in one country is not easy, it requires changing a lot lows, preparing people for this, informing public, bank regulations, financial regulations...
Of course, first you will need to get support from politicians who probably rarely using even simple email and it's question how much they can understand Bitcoin concept.
I really doubt such idea is possible now. 

The argentina peso is already more or less pegged to the dollar on the government sanctioned currency exchanges. The most likely scenario is that Argentina would have a much higher adoption rate of bitcoin then the rest of the world. The government of Argentina is unlikely to give up control of their currency as they are more or less a deadbeat government (has a history of defaulting on their obligations). 

I doubt that this kind of adoption with official sanction will happen anytime soon
Argentina is too deeply steeped in the traditional financial system for this to happen easily

It is not an efficient peg. They don't have the reserves to defend the peg.
There is a huge premium on the USD in the black market.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Yes, sure, a super interventionist government giving up control on their currency. Do you have any idea of how high is inflation there?

They don't have enough foreign currency reserves to cover the value of all of the pesos in circulation however they do have enough to cover foreign trade out of Argentina. The reason the dollar trades at such a premium is because it is widely believed that the government will further devalue the peso in the near future (lower the peg), and have capital controls in place that prevent too much money from leaving the country.

Argentina's economy is the fastest-growing in South America so i'm not surprised they decided to say YES to Bitcoin.

More than Chile? No way. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG

Uruguay is also growing more.

This tthread title is missleading. THere is nothing that aims towards this.

Whats the current currency of Argentina?

Argentinian peso, which has gigantic inflation.  http://marketmonetarist.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/price-level-argentina1.jpg

That is crazy. I think this level of inflation will likely give the people of argentina incentives to use bitcoin more then they do not, however the Argentina government will likely not adopt bitcoin as an official currency as it would mean they would lose control over the currency base.

They should at least have another go at the Islas Malvinas aka Falkland Islands

No. Bitcoin has way to much vortality to be used in Argentina. You think 20 % inflation is worse? Try 90 % over the last months. And now it doesn't matter that it went up there before because most people can't sit on their money until "its up" again. $ is king in Argentinia.

Bitcoin is more stable then Argentina's peso. It is also not subject to the control of argentina's government which has a history of not making good on it's promises to repay creditors.

To completely replace a fiat?  :o :o :o  Still a long way to go. But BTC will surely prevail.

Of course the government won't give up control on their currency. But citizens look for other options, even if they aren't legal, to protect from inflation. And bitcoin is a really good one, so I expect bitcoin to grow specially in countries with high inflation, like Argentina or Venezuela.

Well, maybe another 50 years I think. :)

Well, I never heard about that. They shouldve wore BTC when they played FIBA.

is there any update about this news?

Definitely

As official currency, forget it. That will never happen.
De facto usage by the people, that is also not as straightforward and seamless as you would imagine, although adoption is growing.

Official adoption might happen in smaller nations, or islands such as Dominica.

Would love to see that.

me too...and i hope in the near future, bitcoins will be accepted here in my locality...

From where are you sir? Are you from Argentina?

Maybe desperate attempt to do in Argentina, but far from replacement flat.

Still needs more time