There’s No Crypto Winter in Argentina, Where Startups Ramp Up to Meet Demand

While bitcoin advocates point to politically fraught Venezuela as a prime example of crypto adoption, they often overlook the more business-friendly hub a bit farther south. Since Argentina has a sordid history of banks restricting customer access, plus an inflation rate that hit 47 percent in 2018, bitcoin isn’t a hard sell these days.“I was raised with my father telling me never trust the Argentine peso and my story was the story many Argentinians had,” Santiago Siri, founder of the blockchain startup Democracy Earth Foundation and investor in several Argentinian crypto startups, told CoinDesk. Indeed, Argentinian usage of the peer-to-peer exchange LocalBitcoins hit an all-time high of 9.4 million Argentine pesos in weekly volume in December 2018. Despite broader market dips, this growth has continued to surge in 2019 at a rate that dwarfs anything witnessed during the 2017 token boom, when the peak was 5.7 million Argentine pesos. That figure would currently represent a slow week in Argentina’s 2019 P2P market.None of this is to say that Argentinian companies haven’t felt the strain of crypto volatility, but local demand and interest remains steady. Plus, a recent influx of Venezuelan immigrants has infused Buenos Aires with underbanked communities that need financial tools and remittance services.“The sector is growing, it’s growing very well. It’s providing a lot of jobs,” Siri said. “People are using these technologies for real survival needs and finding themselves in a better world than if they had to trust the government.”