Author: David Hoffman, Co-founder of Bankless; Translation: Golden Finance xiaozou

I was in Argentina throughout August, participating in the crypto pop-up city “Aleph” in downtown Buenos Aires. Aleph is Zuzalu

and part of Devconnect. Protocol Labs’ top-down support and coordination is a tribute to the hundreds of volunteers, community leaders, and ecosystem partners who have come together to foster an enabling environment for the next generation of crypto startups in Argentina. In the Aleph Hub, a 1,000-person coworking space, crypto startups, venture capitalists, and the Argentine government came together for a month of collaboration, support, and growth. While Aleph is a one-month event that will soon be over, the spark it ignited is expected to grow into a wildfire across Argentina and across Latin America. That wildfire is “Crecimiento” — growth.

1. Why Argentina?

Argentina is a crypto pioneer.

While VCs and Crypto Twitter degens in developed countries speculate on crypto use cases, adoption, and “attracting retail investors,” in Argentina, cryptocurrencies are already being adopted by millions of people who desperately need crypto value and services.

Argentina is the perfect hotbed for the crypto economy. Easy internet access, monetary inflation, capital controls, and traditional business frictions have combined to create an environment where the power of crypto can really shine.

Ironically, millions of “well-adjusted adults who work 9-to-5 jobs and are conscientious about their monthly expenses” in Argentina have discovered that cryptocurrency is a means to a better life.

There is a clear difference between Argentina’s crypto economy and the “use cases” and “meta” often discussed on Crypto Twitter. Not all Argentines can afford to bet on the next shiny alt-L1, nor can they dive into the trenches of meme coins. The money in their pockets may be worth 1% tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.

Sure, Argentina has its crypto natives who are also playing the degen game, but these degen activities pale in comparison to the millions of Argentinian citizens who don’t care about cryptocurrencies or the fake world created by the degens on Crypto Twitter, but still use their favorite crypto apps (Lemon, Belo, BuenBit or Ripio) to escape inflation, buy coffee, and keep their wealth safe.

2. Bottom-up: Hundreds of startups

While the Salvadoran government has been praised by Bitcoin users for its forward-thinking approach to Bitcoin, citizens of El Salvador are not thrilled with the country’s top-down Bitcoin investment.

In contrast, citizens of Argentina are either genuinely excited about cryptocurrencies or, at worst, indifferent. Granted, not every Argentine uses cryptocurrencies, but their use is normalized and culturally accepted. Ordinary Argentinians have either directly improved their lives through cryptocurrencies, through easy access to dollars, payment services, and banking the unbanked, or they know someone who has.

Argentina has more bottom-up support and acceptance for cryptocurrencies than anywhere else in the world.

Both Crecimiento and Aleph are guided by the belief that there are “100 great startups” standing between Argentina and crypto-driven economic growth and national prosperity.

All it takes is a hundred plus startups, 5,000 plus crypto jobs, to bring crypto value into Argentina… Argentina could be the first country to reach cryptocurrency escape velocity and become the first end-to-end crypto-driven country in the world.

At Aleph, 67 crypto startups from pre-seed to Series A are working together in the makerspace, collaborating to solve problems and supporting each other. There, 22 experts and successful entrepreneurs from venture capital firms and crypto teams gathered in the Aleph Hub, making time to offer their advice and perspectives, passing on wisdom to the younger generation of startups.

A host of well-known speakers and experts talk to startups every day at Aleph, from Seba Serrano (Ripio) to Alec Oxenford (OLX) to Nico Berman (Kaszek) to Marta Cruz (NXTP Ventures). At the Aleph Hub, there is a college-level class every day that showcases the skills needed to build in Web3. Workshops, talks, and mentoring advice highlight some of the most technical areas of the industry.

A big shout out to ZKsync - the startup builders and hackathon attendees overwhelmingly mentioned the great support the ZKsync team provided to Aleph. Aleph’s third week was “ZK Week” and the ZKsync LATAM Devrel team provided education in English and Spanish to the builders there.

Above is a snapshot of a day in the life of Aleph bUILDER

3. Top-down: Mile’s digital transformation

Argentina is the only country in the world with a strong grassroots crypto industry backed by a strong, top-down pro-crypto government.

This is the potential that Crecimiento is trying to tap.

Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, is deeply crypto-spiritual in many ways, and as the new administration overhauls Argentina’s government, the country’s crypto leaders see a path to permanently embedding cryptocurrency into Argentina’s growth plans for the next decade and beyond.

Milei is pro-tech, pro-investment, and pro-acceleration. He has a real “blockchain advisor” in his cabinet, Sergio Morales. Milei’s interest in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is part of his broader economic philosophy, which includes dollarizing the economy and reducing government intervention.

Milei drafts bills to balance crypto innovation and investor protection, and works with the crypto industry to provide regulatory clarity. Part of Milei’s initial “Big Economic Decree” included eliminating fiat currency laws, allowing contracts to be denominated in any currency.

These are good steps toward crypto legality in Argentina, but there’s still a long way to go.

The real challenge facing the crypto industry is whether Argentina can establish a strong pro-crypto regulatory framework that crypto entrepreneurs can use to ensure cryptocurrencies are legally protected for decades. Can crypto protections be established beyond what exists under the current government? What if a new government comes to power and tries to undo the crypto progress made by the Milei government, as has happened many times in the past with other industries in Argentina?

On August 22, Aleph hosted a “Regulatory Day” where leaders of the Milei government came to the Aleph Hub for a day of discussions, all focused on what crypto companies and startups need from the Milei government.

It’s not just Milei. The picture below shows the former president of Argentina walking in the Aleph makerspace.

This is like Bill Clinton attending the ETH Denver hackathon.

Unlike the United States, the crypto industry in Argentina is highly appreciated and supported by government officials.

4. Aleph: A network nation

Aleph is groundbreaking crypto-native technology backed by over 2,300 Aleph members!

QuarkID, an application incubated by the City of Buenos Aires, uses verifiable credentials, decentralized IDs, and zero-knowledge cryptography to create a user-sovereign identity system for all members of Aleph.

After purchasing my ticket to Aleph, I was given a verifiable credential that allowed my iPhone to open the door to the Aleph Hub, the makerspace, and my rights and privileges as an Aleph member allowed me to earn 100 MORFI tokens each week.

The MORFI token is an ERC20 token on ZKsync Era that can be redeemed for 1,000 Argentine pesos at local businesses that have signed up to accept MORFI, which can be used to purchase food, coffee, or other services on the Aleph Hub. 1,000 pesos is roughly equivalent to $1 at the time of writing. All of this runs on the ZKsync Era mainnet and is a real-world prototype of the Baljian Network nation running on crypto rails.

Maybe you’re thinking, “How did they get 50+ local businesses to accept crypto payments?” The sales pitch becomes pretty easy when you learn that it takes 2-3 months to settle regular peso payments via the fintech route…which means businesses aren’t waiting for the peso to drop significantly before getting paid.

Last month, Argentina experienced its lowest inflation rate in five years, at 4%. That's 4% in one month, not one year. You think a 2.9% credit card fee is bad? Imagine a business losing 10% due to currency devaluation simply because the bank held the money for months before giving it to the business. Of course, when Argentinian businesses were told they could get the money immediately, they were happy.

Later this year, QuarkID will build its own independent Elastic Chain on the ZK Stack and become part of the ZKsync Hyperchain. QuarkID plans to include more traditional services in their application, ranging from driver's licenses and other government-issued certificates to user-controlled wallets. In any case, this will become the Argentine L2.

5. Conclusion

With the end of Aleph, VCs, experts, and foreigners will all have to leave. We all have homes to go back to and things to do. Aleph has a three-year lease and will remain open to crypto startups as a common hub to support the crypto industry moving forward. Supportive networks have been created, with all kinds of connections, friendships, and investments.

Will Aleph be the final boost to Argentina’s crypto industry?

Argentina, of course, has more problems than it should be dealing with. A labyrinthine tax system means rampant evasion, as even regulators know. There are restrictions on business registration. Not to mention decades of entrenched pseudo-communism that has left millions of voters impoverished and on government handouts.

But if there is one thing that is agreed upon in Argentina, it is that the local grassroots crypto industry is one of the brightest stars on the horizon. While many Argentinians I know have become very wealthy from crypto wealth, many of them are sticking around. They love Argentina and its people. This is not a place to escape to, but a culture worth experiencing and a country trying to become worth reinvesting in.

I don’t know if cryptocurrencies can single-handedly improve the quality of life in Argentina, but we’ve seen that cryptocurrencies have lifted millions of Argentines out of poverty and saved them from the risk of currency devaluation.

Maybe modern governments are simply too rigid to allow for productive reconstruction. That’s sad, but that’s okay.

Cryptocurrency can help people help themselves, no matter their country. If their country can also support cryptocurrency, then of course it is better.