By James Tunningley, director and co-founder, Architect Systems Advisory Amid soaring inflation and crippling debt, Argentina is turning to crypto to stabilize its economy and drive growth. As the U.S. retreats from its leadership role in crypto, Argentina is seizing the opportunity. At the heart of this transformation is the Crecimiento movement uniting crypto believers, entrepreneurs, and innovators working toward sustainable, crypto-driven reform. With a newly-elected President showing interest in crypto’s potential, Crecimiento is harnessing crypto to help reshape the economy, focusing on payments, credit, property, and more. Crecimiento’s vision is coming to life at Aleph, a month-long pop-up city in Buenos Aires where over 2,000 Argentine and global founders, builders, investors, and policy leaders have gathered to launch crypto startups and fuel innovation. Once among the world’s wealthiest nations in the early 20th century with a higher per capita income than Germany and France, Argentina now grapples with the world’s highest inflation and a depreciating peso impacting economic confidence. To illustrate: $100,000 in Argentine pesos from 1995 would be worth about $310 today. But Argentina’s high crypto adoption (4ourth globally), a thriving ecosystem with companies like OpenZeppelin, Ripio and RSK, and a supportive political environment are converging to position the country as a digital leader. More than a third of Argentina's population uses crypto for everyday transactions and the country has seen the highest number of crypto-paid employees in the world, with over 50% of the freelance economy powered by crypto in recent years. As the U.S. regulatory environment drives crypto innovation and talent offshore, an opportunity for global leadership has emerged. Some economies have been moving first to fill this void through specific crypto-first initiatives – like Abu Dhabi’s Hub71, Zug’s Crypto Valley, Brazil’s Drex CBDC – though these efforts are still isolated. Argentina is adopting a more comprehensive approach to digital assets under President Javier Milei, who is attracting foreign investment and eliminating legal tender laws to promote the use of crypto. Recent reforms, such as approving the tokenization of certificates – enabling the creation of LLCs entirely using crypto, highlight this shift. Unlike the U.S., Argentina’s regulators, including the CNV (Securities Commission), BCRA (Federal Reserve), and UIF (equivalent to U.S. FinCEN), are actively engaging with the crypto industry to improve clarity and operations. The CNV has clarified private offerings and, with UIF, established a Virtual Assets Service Provider Register. And the BCRA is considering lifting its 2022 ban on crypto services. This collaborative effort is driving the creation of a nationwide sandbox for crypto experimentation and revising the Incentive Regime for Large Investments (RIGI) to extend incentives to tech and crypto innovations, led by the Crecimiento movement. Meanwhile, Crecimiento’s core contributors have been hard at work for months problem-solving and conducting research to identify crypto-enabled solutions to Argentina’s hardest economic frictions. Throughout August, more than 300 talks, events, hacks, and Asados are unfolding at Aleph in Buenos Aires. If you believe in crypto's power to create a more equitable world, Argentina is where you need to be. Read the rest. |