“Bitcoin fans have a new presidential candidate to throw their weight behind,” read the first line in a recent newsletter by Decrypt, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency site. The rest was no less gushing in its praise of Javier Milei, the upset front-runner in Argentina’s presidential election.
Milei is a far-right libertarian, a fan of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro — and, crucially, the candidate that wants to take Argentina in the most radically new economic direction. He is known for being amenable to crypto, saying that “Bitcoin represents money’s return to its original maker: the private sector.”
However, at the core of his policies lies not cryptocurrency, but dollarization. Decrypt’s enthusiasm for Milei might therefore be misplaced: If he did replace the peso with the U.S. dollar, it may potentially mean a much less crypto-friendly Argentina.
For a while now, Argentina has weathered inflation that is well over 100% and rising. The government has put strict controls on U.S. dollars entering the country, resulting in a thriving black market. Virtually every story Rest of World publishes about Argentina contains an explanatory paragraph on its bizarre and dire monetary situation. This is not only because currency issues are one of the main problems facing every single person in the country on a day-to-day basis, but also because they determine how and why Argentines adopt tech in weird and wonderful ways.
Crypto is no exception.
Argentina is a major adopter of crypto on the world stage, with around a third of the population actively using it on a daily basis. But it is the economic crisis that has determined how and why the country adopted crypto. Unlike the U.S. and Europe — places with stable currencies where crypto has, in recent years, been seen as an investment tool — Argentines use it as a store of value. Getting their hands on foreign currency is very difficult, and keeping their pesos in a bank is a surefire way of seeing all their worth evaporate. In terms of crypto adoption, Argentina has even overtaken El Salvador, the country where President Nayib Bukele rushed to introduce bitcoin as a national currency in 2021.
Like Milei, Bukele was met with rapturous applause by the crypto community. But the two actually couldn’t be more different while still sitting within the “pro-crypto” camp.
Bukele supports one specific crypto project: bitcoin. Milei seems more interested in defending people’s right to use any crypto (even if he has been bullish on bitcoin).
Bukele seems to have used bitcoin as a tool to distance himself from the constraints dollarization placed on El Salvador; Milei wants to dollarize Argentina’s economy.
Bukele has encouraged Salvadorans to store their crypto in a government-linked wallet; Milei says he hates this sort of government interventionism, which is why he is happy to relinquish sovereignty by giving up the peso.
Ultimately, because dollarization — not crypto — is what truly appeals to Milei, his crypto-fans might end up disappointed. Dollarization will inevitably have many unexpected side effects, including for crypto’s use case. In a dollarized Argentina, how many would stick to crypto if the main reason they used it was so their money wouldn’t lose its value? The dollar could well take on that role.
Source link : https://restofworld.org/2023/newsletter-latin-america-argentina-milei-bitcoin/
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Publish date : 2023-09-13 03:00:00
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