[2019-02-15] Argentina Settles Export Deal With Paraguay Using Bitcoin

[gentlemand]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/argentina-settles-export-deal-with-paraguay-using-bitcoin

An interesting wee story, though in this context I'm not massively sure what they mean when they say Argentina paid Paraguay. Is this a formalised payment between governments? Payments between government backed companies or private companies with a government supply deal?

Each step down makes it a bit less sexy. Still, it's better than everyone involved being thrown out of an aeroplane.

[Carlton Banks]

It was ostensibly a small (~$7000) deal. It's slightly desperate as a news item, that kind of sum is a mediocre deal even between individuals, let alone larger organisations.

[IconFirm]

More non-news sensationalism from Cointelegraph - they're getting desperate.

[suzanne5223]

It was ostensibly a small (~$7000) deal. It's slightly desperate as a news item, that kind of sum is a mediocre deal even between individuals, let alone larger organisations.

Yes, it  just a small deal but if more government agency make you of Bitcoin like that it will encourage their citizen, organization individuals and more countries government to make use of Bitcoin. Besides, with this kind of news and the JP Morgan crypto coin there's possibility for bull run to happen sooner than we can imagine.

[magneto]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/argentina-settles-export-deal-with-paraguay-using-bitcoin

An interesting wee story, though in this context I'm not massively sure what they mean when they say Argentina paid Paraguay. Is this a formalised payment between governments? Payments between government backed companies or private companies with a government supply deal?

Each step down makes it a bit less sexy. Still, it's better than everyone involved being thrown out of an aeroplane.

The amounts involved are significantly less than what I was expecting. They also apparently used an intermediary to process the payments. It seems like this was more of a test than anything important.

I still believe that there is a ton of potential which is recognised by the bitcoin community, and trading internationally on a corporate level is definitely one of them. You essentially get rid of all the currency exchange fees, it's instant and a lot more convenient, and thus, exchange rate risk can be better managed (since a business can convert it into fiat as soon as they receive the payment)

Yet, BTC isn't being utilised in this way, at least yet. I think that the next bull market could be the catalyst to these things actually happening, but no one knows for sure.

[BitHodler]

It was ostensibly a small (~$7000) deal. It's slightly desperate as a news item, that kind of sum is a mediocre deal even between individuals, let alone larger organisations.

It's a first step, and very likely a step that's meant to test the functionality and reliability of Bitcoin in this case. In other words, I'm actually quite happy with articles like these.

It's hard to think of similar entities to move large amounts of coins this early on, especially when you are subjected to the volatility of this market, and we're currently going through a pretty lengthy bear market.

It shows character to do this. At the end of the day, this is what people like to read about, and it's for once not focused on the price or speculation, but actual use, and that's what matters.

[Carlton Banks]

It's a first step, and very likely a step that's meant to test the functionality and reliability of Bitcoin in this case. In other words, I'm actually quite happy with articles like these.

The trouble is, the wording in the article is a bit non-specific. It could easily have been contractors paying each other, not the actual Paraguay-an/Argentinian governments. What if it was the payments contractors of the service contractors that did this $7000 deal? Or the cross-border payments contractors of the payments contractors of the service contractors?

[BitHodler]

The trouble is, the wording in the article is a bit non-specific. It could easily have been contractors paying each other, not the actual Paraguay-an/Argentinian governments. What if it was the payments contractors of the service contractors that did this $7000 deal? Or the cross-border payments contractors of the payments contractors of the service contractors?

The thing is that local government departments don't necessarily have to represent the country as a whole, so from there it's very likely that they had an external party settle the transaction on behalf of them.

The fact that the coins have been converted to fiat makes it look even more like that. It would indeed be nice to have these articles contain more specific information, but what can we expect from lazy crypto news outlets?

[eaLiTy]

An interesting wee story, though in this context I'm not massively sure what they mean when they say Argentina paid Paraguay. Is this a formalised payment between governments? Payments between government backed companies or private companies with a government supply deal?

Each step down makes it a bit less sexy. Still, it's better than everyone involved being thrown out of an aeroplane.

This is a really positive news and i hope it will make headlines all over the world so that exporters take a look at bitcoin and understand its possibilities when it comes to international trade and commerce and this is the kind of news that have to make headlines rather than the bull and the bear run, we need more news like this to get major attention so that people will understand the possibility of bitcoin in different sectors of trade and not just as a store of value.

[ASHLIUSZ]

This isn't a contract between two governments, it seems to be a contract between two contracts representing two countries. If this contract has been made by the governments with the use of bitcoin, surely it could've made at least a small impact on the market positively as more people will know about the use case of bitcoin.

[coolcoinz]

Why would they choose bitcoin if all they wanted was fiat? They immediately converted the money into fiat after the deal so if it was Argentina paying Paraguay, for some reason they didn't want to buy the Guarani. Now what could be the reason? Inflation? The Guarani is inflating rapidly, because you could buy 5500 of it for 1 USD a year ago and now you can get close to 6100, but it's still not a hyperinflation that could change the value of the trade within days or weeks, especially such a small trade. Many of us, bitcoiners, make trades of 7k USD every month. This is a strange story if you ask me.

[squatter]

An interesting wee story, though in this context I'm not massively sure what they mean when they say Argentina paid Paraguay. Is this a formalised payment between governments? Payments between government backed companies or private companies with a government supply deal?

It doesn't look like an intergovernmental payment, just an import/export deal between two companies. A payment processor (Bitex) was used to convert the coins into pesos and deliver payment. Not exactly revolutionary, but I guess it's cool to see B2B payments happening with Bitcoin, even if the amounts are really small.

[CryptoBry]

One thing for sure is that this can be a small good news for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general. We are all hoping that this can pave the way for more transactions bearing of the same nature. However, the big reason why this small transaction has become a news is that right now the market is looking for more use of Bitcoin and there has to be more and more transactions like this to make this cryptocurrency jumpstart into the future and in a way paving the way for massive and institutional adoption. What can happen to Bitcoin if export and import transactions can be conducted on the said platform...am sure it can be making big impact.

[suzanne5223]

The trouble is, the wording in the article is a bit non-specific. It could easily have been contractors paying each other, not the actual Paraguay-an/Argentinian governments. What if it was the payments contractors of the service contractors that did this $7000 deal? Or the cross-border payments contractors of the payments contractors of the service contractors?

The thing is that local government departments don't necessarily have to represent the country as a whole, so from there it's very likely that they had an external party settle the transaction on behalf of them.

The fact that the coins have been converted to fiat makes it look even more like that. It would indeed be nice to have these articles contain more specific information, but what can we expect from lazy crypto news outlets?

The article writer seems lazy for not doing her job right because the crypto community believed in information with tangible evidence but we can't also called them lazy type because they will only give out the information which their source told them to for some reason which you and I can't know.

[1Referee]

It would indeed be nice to have these articles contain more specific information, but what can we expect from lazy crypto news outlets?

We can't expect much from news outlets per se, but we can and should expect from people to ditch certain news outlets. All people are doing is donating free traffic to sites such as CoinIdol which benefits them and incentivizes them even further to post garbage, because it pays off now. If garbage articles are paying off, there's no reason for them to change anything, because their business model works.

In the end, this article only highlights that whoever the transacting parties are, that Bitcoin is a convenient manner to transfer value from one place to another.

[milewilda]

It was ostensibly a small (~$7000) deal. It's slightly desperate as a news item, that kind of sum is a mediocre deal even between individuals, let alone larger organisations.

Yes, it  just a small deal but if more government agency make you of Bitcoin like that it will encourage their citizen, organization individuals and more countries government to make use of Bitcoin. Besides, with this kind of news and the JP Morgan crypto coin there's possibility for bull run to happen sooner than we can imagine.

For those kind of transactions then i would really believe that it can really trigger out bull run but the thing you do mentioned about JP Morgan's crypto then i dont really consider for it to be valid.It has nothing to do and
i do completely treat it as an another shitcoin just like the most.
On the amount being transacted between the two, it might not be as big to get some attention but it do shows about the possibility and there might be more similar transactions could happen on larger scales.

[Naida_BR]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/argentina-settles-export-deal-with-paraguay-using-bitcoin

An interesting wee story, though in this context I'm not massively sure what they mean when they say Argentina paid Paraguay. Is this a formalised payment between governments? Payments between government backed companies or private companies with a government supply deal?

Each step down makes it a bit less sexy. Still, it's better than everyone involved being thrown out of an aeroplane.

I have started to be cautious with news like this one that is coming to the public. The sources are only blockchain websites and ONLY. Why another website like CNN or BBC doesn't come with this incident or even a public statement from the respective authority of one of these countries?
It is like they are trying to just create FOMO. (correct me if I am mistaken, by sharing another source link)

[stompix]

It doesn't look like an intergovernmental payment, just an import/export deal between two companies. A payment processor (Bitex) was used to convert the coins into pesos and deliver payment. Not exactly revolutionary, but I guess it's cool to see B2B payments happening with Bitcoin, even if the amounts are really small.

I would love to see those deals happening without the damn 3rd party!!!

So rather than sending those pesos or whatever and having them instantly converted as any bank does, they chose to "hire" a guy, probably acquire some BTC , then sending BTC to bitmex, having them exchanged and the funds deposited in an Argentina bank.

I might be wrong but since we know an exchange was involved can somebody draw a shorter circuit for the funds as I can't imagine this with less than 3 steps!

Also, I doubt an international bank transfer was more expensive than hiring an intermediary.

[davis196]

https://cointelegraph.com/news/argentina-settles-export-deal-with-paraguay-using-bitcoin

An interesting wee story, though in this context I'm not massively sure what they mean when they say Argentina paid Paraguay. Is this a formalised payment between governments? Payments between government backed companies or private companies with a government supply deal?

Each step down makes it a bit less sexy. Still, it's better than everyone involved being thrown out of an aeroplane.

As far as I know,Argentina's national currency is very unstable.That's why they must be willing to accept bitcoin payments in their export deals.I'm not quite familiar about the national currency of Paraguay.It is more stable or it has high inflaiton?

[stompix]

As far as I know,Argentina's national currency is very unstable.That's why they must be willing to accept bitcoin payments in their export deals.I'm not quite familiar about the national currency of Paraguay.It is more stable or it has high inflaiton?

You missed this part, actually the third phrase in the article:

The purchase was paid for in BTC and then converted into Argentine peso to settle accounts with the exporter of the agricultural chemicals.

They didn't take BTC, the Paraguay side paid in BTC, the Argentian received pesos.