Topic: Central Bank of Argentina hosts a live Bitcoin mining exhibit (Read 353 times)

Erm ... if it was like you write, then the government would actually be fine, because they would have to pay only 1/10 of the money (compared to 2021) to their creditors

No, the problem in this case is of course interest rates. To make Argentine bonds in Pesos attractive, Argentina had to offer bonds where the interest rate is tied to the inflation rate (so called CER bonds), so there is actually pressure to pay (and earn) more each month. There are other bonds with fixed interest rate but the rate is very high of course, and there also bonds in US dollars (which may be the ones you meant) with low interest rates.

The big problem in Argentina is the inflation inertia, which was high in several decades (1970s, 1980s, 2010s and 2020s), decreased confidence in Pesos, and made the US dollar always attractive to saving.

By the way, as I wrote in an earlier post, an Argentine state company named YPF is mining Bitcoins currently with flare gas, in cooperation with Genesis Mining (GDA). I wondered if there was a way to save at least a part of these BTC for a small strategic reserve, but found nothing about it. It seems to me that YPF is basically only selling energy to Genesis via small flare gas power plants and thus they have no control over the mined Bitcoins.

Meanwhile, an Argentine Congress member has announced a law project that the Argentine Central Bank should mine and accumulate Bitcoins as a strategic reserve (he proposes 1% of the Central Bank reserves to be in Bitcoin). The party he belongs to (PRO) is loosely allied with the current government.

The problem for Argentina is all the DEBT is based on Argentine Pesos, which has been dramatically inflated over 4 years

In 2021 $1 US gave you 100 Argentine Pesos

Today $1 US gives you 1000 Argentine Pesos

https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=ARS&view=5Y

The government has to do something about all the old debt, while trying to move to more stable ways to "store value" in whatever money they plan to use.

When I was there, getting the Pesos was extremely difficult and their is a blue market as well as a regular market rate to get their Peso, so it's still quite a mess there.

All this refers to something very serious that is being generated in Argentina , what I know according to some work colleagues is that the government has many problems with retirees or pensioners , and this has generated a lot of controversy, now the government can appear with an improvement in its economy, they can do what the Venezuelan government does and do mining , BTC mining is a good business, it may be that Argentina wants to Grow in this sense and thus Appease its debt with the same Argentines.

Actually there are some examples of countries which have adopted a foreign currency unilaterally, e.g. Ecuador in 2000 and Bosnia (with the Euro) in the 90s.

They do not even need an agreement with the US because the dollars already circulate in the country. The same situation applies to Argentina, de facto it's already a "bimonetary" country. You can open USD bank accounts in Argentina, for example. In the 90s there was already a "currency board" and the Peso was pegged to the US dollar. But that policy broke in 2002.

The US could of course pressure Argentina with commercial agreements to not adopt the USD. But why should they? They're interested in preserving the US dollar's importance. And the Fed would not have to care about Argentina neither: the worst that could happen is that Argentina fails in its dollarization attempt and could return to the Peso.

Milei's idea is not to ban the Peso but to allow a free competition of currencies, as written in an earlier post. This means that he does not only aim to eliminate the concept of the Peso as legal tender, but to break with the complete "legal tender" concept (which is a forced obligation to use a single currency). De facto this could lead to a complete dollarization if people try to get rid of Pesos. That's what happened in El Salvador for example, where a national currency, the Colón, (pegged to the USD) still exists in theory but lost almost all importance.

The first steps to "free competition of currencies" were implemented by a decree in late 2023 already, when contracts are allowed in any currency or value, including Bitcoin.

Closing the Central Bank indeed isn't easy as it has also other functions than just currency policy, like the supervision of commercial banks. What Milei aims to since he's in power is however something different: to pass regulations banning excessive currency emission ("money printing"). In part this has already been implemented.

The world is a funny place indeed - and politicians do tend to say lots of everything and anything.
The president said lots of stuff, but that doesn't mean it will bring that much good in the end.
The dollar is both a curse and a boon to this world, and for the US for sure it's the greatest tool at their belt.

Yeah - it looks like an exhibit for sure, not booming with life - young people like bright light and how they dance with their work, it would be more appealing for sure, in my opinion

Wow, this is interesting but I think it will be more interesting if Argentina decides to offer people a small tour inside a GDA mining data center. From this image in OP's post, it doesn't look impressive but a tour in big mining data center will be so impressive that I believe it will give a motivation to many youngsters to know more about Bitcoin, mining and IT engineering or networking.

Yes, he wants to dollarize while BRICS countries want to dedollarize, we live in a funny place. He wants to replace Argentine peso with the US dollar but is such a thing possible? Why would the US allow that? This is basically Argentina exporting its problems and inflations via the USD.
I think their Presiden't promise was for the sake of votes. No one will let him to shut down central banks, guys behind the scenes won't allow it unless there is a better alternative for them.

I did not participated in those discussions when he got elected AFAIK but I just read some news mentioned above by tbct_mt2 that some news outlets chose wrong words to show he will make BTC a legal tender in Argentina while he did not made any of those statements instead he want to dollarize the central bank and wants to give freedom of transact.

I agree with you, he did not mean to make it more legal or whatever some news outlets mistakenly shared, his stance was just to compete or improve the fiat. BTC won't be used as currency even if I am not wrong BTC is not normally being used as currency in El-Salvador even.

I came across this news I think like a week ago, it was indeed amazing, and the fact that this is coming from the country's central bank makes the whole thing even more amazing.

This is a indeed a prove that Bitcoin is here to stay, bitcoin is into the world and is not going back, those who are ignorant of this fact will one day cry bitterly for the kind of opportunity they missed by not embracing bitcoin since all this years.

Government around the world that are still neglecting bitcoin and it's potentials are also making a huge mistake, the US which is a country all other countries of the world look up to now have a president and vice president who are bitcoin enthusiasts and are willing to support the growth and adoption of bitcoin in the US, this also is more than convincing enough that indeed, bitcoin is here to stay.

@d5000, It's hard for me to imagine living in a country with such inflation, because here in the EU it's mostly single-digit numbers, and yet in the last few years everything has become more expensive, quite a bit. Considering that I keep all my bills, I came to the conclusion that I pay for groceries 30-50% more than before the pandemic, although some things have become more expensive and much more than that.

Argentina is really facing a big challenge and maybe you just need someone like Milei to do radical things in an effort to try to bring about positive change. However, I wonder if Argentina can improve its situation on its own or if a lot depends on external factors - because some people obviously do not want Argentina to be placed alongside other South American countries, of course with the exception of Venezuela, which is in the worst situation by far.

No. You may have confused it with the tax agency AFIP, which was dissolved, but I would speak more of a "renaming" and the removal of some middle management, because after the "dissolution" they do approximately the same thing than before, only with slightly less people.

Milei promised to close the Central Bank in his early presidential campaign in 2023, but later he softened his position a bit (as people pointed out that even countries without an own currency, like Ecuador, have a Central Bank), instead insisting in that the department of the Central Bank which "prints money" should be dissolved. This has still not occurred, however the emission rate of Argentine Pesos has been lowered drastically.

Yes, he visited the US. But just Trump (even if I don't like him btw) did insist a bit with the "Bitcoin as a currency" idea, for example when he proposed to remove capital gains taxes on (some) cryptos, including Bitcoin, in October, and instead treat them as currencies.

It has to be seen if Milei can convert into an influential figure in Latin America, and I think it depends on his success on improving the economic structure in general in Argentina. Many countries in the region have currently center-left governments (Mexico, Brazil, Chile). It is possible that they may shift if Milei is really successful, but it's too early to judge. He has only been able to reduce inflation but it's still annualized about 40-50%, and at the cost of a recession. The real challenge is if the inflation can be lowered further (40% annually is still one of the highest figures in the world, and Argentina between 2002 and 2018 never reached this value) even if the economy starts to grow again. If instead the country stays in a depression or inflation stagnates at the current values, I don't think he'll be influential at all.

@d5000, if my memory serves me right, Milei chose the USA for his first visit after becoming president - and it's no secret that they don't (or at least didn't) have a good opinion of BTC as a currency, although they don't mind it as an investment. In any case, it will be interesting to see what Milei will do in Argentina, and Mr. Donald in the US in the next 3-4 years when it comes to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.

These two presidents should have some influence, considering that the US and Argentina are large countries with a total population of around 370 million people.

It’s very open minded of Argentina to hold an exhibit like this. My favorite thing about this is how creative and artistic they made it to be. Many organizations try to make events like this to spread awareness and knowledge about cryptocurrency but it is so boring that even those who are already into crypto don’t want to go and see it. But the way they have made this makes me think that they really put some thought and effort into it which makes me think they have very good genuine plans for crypto. I really hope that we see more of art that depicts economic, financial, and technological changes in our world. We deserve to see good art too

If I remember correctly, the Central Bank of Argentina was disbanded by Milei, right? So that means this must be a new one.

It does not surprise me about the shredded dollars. The old lime green paper notes were out of circulation for at least a decade. So it does not make sense to state the monetary value of the shredded notes as they are effectively worthless.

The artist's idea is really creative and innovative and I am surprised that it is displayed in a central bank in Argentina. I liked the idea very much.

Although the Argentine president is a big supporter of Bitcoin according to his statements, we have not yet seen any moves by the Argentine government towards officially adopting Bitcoin.

The art exhibition might not be the type of news we are expecting from Javier Milei based on the hype the community had about his presidential bid. I had expected that he would have made more friendly policies that would begin to make Argentina a crypto hub. But we need to be patient with him because governance is different from election campaigns.

However, the collaboration between the Central Bank of Argentina and Alberto Echegaray shows that the government has not lost sight of its campaign promises. It shows that the government recognizes that the crypto industry is a significant player in the financial system. As long as there is inflation and fiat keeps losing its value people will always depend on Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, and the government recognizes this fact.

Argenina and Milei will need to learn from available Bitcoin Mining Museum. This museum was established in 2022 and it was made mostly from the Curator's pocket money and some parts come from donations. It is a NGO.

It has some past exhibits too and Texas blockchain is one of them.

"General forum opinion" is correct in that Milei probably is not a friend of too harsh Bitcoin/crypto regulation. Contract law was also already flexibilized, allowing financial contracts in units different to the Argentine Peso, including Bitcoin.

Bitcoin-related regulations were however never too strict in Argentina, with the exception of the ban for banks I mentioned, but that measure can be understood in the context of a year of financial instability (>150% inflation in 2023).

But I don't expect Milei advancing in the direction of Bitcoin as a "legal tender" like in El Salvador. Simply because he probably doesn't support the concept of a legal tender at all, due to his ideology that all currencies should compete freely.

Regarding reserves and mining, it's interesting that an argentine state company, the oil corporation YPF, already mines Bitcoins since 2022. It has recently announced to expand its mining activities. However, I have never seen announcements regarding holding these coins.

Yes, it is likely that mainly the US dollar benefits from the "free currency competition" if it is finally introduced by the Milei government. Argentina is heavily dollarized since the 90s at least, most people use the USD to save money. The USDT and other dollar stablecoins have recently got some attention because their acquisition is much easier than of the USD. But Bitcoin is indeed more used for speculation, like elsewhere. However, there are businesses that accept Bitcoin and cryptos, above all in the tourism industry and in IT-related services.

As in Argentina cryptos were mainly considered a means to circunvent the restrictions to acquire foreign currencies like the USD, it is unclear if the lifting of these restrictions (planned for 2025) will benefit Bitcoin or not. About 15-20% of Argentines hold or have held cryptocurrencies according to estimations by several sources (Triple-A, for example). However this includes the USDT, and USDT holdings will probably dramatically decrease once the restrictions are lifted.

My prediction is that Bitcoin will benefit from the general more libertarian/liberal financial policy of the Milei government and also from the current attention it generates due to the bull market, but the percentage of people holding cryptos could lower to 10-15%. However, I think stablecoin-holding people aren't that important for Bitcoin adoption so this may not be actually a negative development.

Wow! That's a breaking news! Not expected at all!

A central bank showing confidence on a digital currency and ignoring the world's most used currency, requires a lot of guts!

The current president of Argentina is a big supporter of Bitcoin and I remember he also held a discussion with the president of El-Salvador regarding adoption of Bitcoin earlier. Hope something great is coming for Bitcoin soon in Argentina.

Many (including me personally) obviously misunderstood some things that were communicated through this forum - because Milei was mentioned on the forum primarily in the context of Bitcoin, in other words as someone who supports it and who will popularize it in some way (legalize) in Argentina.

If his opinion is that currencies should compete on the market, then Bitcoin does not have much of a chance considering that most people use it as an investment, not as a currency.