Crypto Adoption in Argentina Soars
09 Jul, 2024 ● Coin news
Cryptocurrency adoption in Argentina has reached record levels as local inflation rates soar.
Argentina has been leading the Western hemisphere in cryptocurrency adoption with a staggering 276% annual inflation rate, according to analysts from Forbes.
Crypto adoption in Argentina is higher as a share of its global population than any other country in the Western hemisphere.
Forbes analysts reported on July 8 that out of 130 million visitors to 55 of the largest exchanges worldwide, 2.5 million were from Argentina, citing website data from SimilarWeb.
Argentina is also the top market on Binance — one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges — in terms of visitors.
According to SimilarWeb, website traffic from Argentina accounts for 6.9% of Binance’s total visits.
Unlike the rising memecoin trend in the crypto industry, Argentina's crypto adoption has not been driven by memecoins.
Instead, locals prefer holding stablecoins like Tether, according to Maximiliano Hinz, Bitget’s head of Latin America.
“Argentina is an anomalous market where many people buy USDT and don’t leave room for much else,” Hinz said, adding:
“We don’t see this elsewhere. Argentines buy spot Tether and don’t do anything with it.”
Stablecoins like USDT are a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a stable value by pegging to a reserve of US dollars at a 1:1 ratio.
With massive local inflation rates, holding money in USDT makes sense for people in Argentina despite the country’s lack of significant measures to protect stablecoin investors.
Despite Argentina’s friendly stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the country has struggled to create a regulatory framework for the industry.
In late 2023, after President Javier Milei took office, Argentina officially endorsed the use of Bitcoin in legally binding contracts.
Since then, Argentina has been trying to regulate the local cryptocurrency market, passing registration requirements for crypto firms in April 2024.
Despite the government’s efforts to regulate crypto, Argentina still struggles to provide regulated cryptocurrency services to its population, according to Forbes.
The report claimed that none of Argentina’s top crypto exchanges, including Binance, have registered with the national securities regulator, Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV).
“To the best of my knowledge, there is no licensing requirement in the Latin American countries where Bitget operates,” Bitget’s Hinz stated.
Sources:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/argentina-lead-crypto-adoption-americas
