What should change in Argentina for more companies to save in bitcoin?
For years, Argentina has lived with a "currency control," consisting of a set of regulations that prevent the normal use and access of individuals and companies to the currency exchange market.
And although President Javier Milei has promised that this control will be eliminated in 2025, no specific date has been defined; indeed, some speculate that it will not be until after the legislative elections in the second half of the year.
Export of services and currency liquidation
As part of these currency restrictions, there is an obligation for those who export goods and/or services to liquidate currencies. What does this mean? If a person, for example, does some work for abroad from Argentina, they are required to bring into the country, via a local bank, the dollars or euros collected, which will be converted to Argentine pesos (“liquidated”) according to the official exchange rate (which is lower than the real or “parallel” exchange rate).
For the year 2025, there is a threshold below which there is no obligation to liquidate currencies, and currencies can be brought into the bank without converting them to pesos: US$36,000 annually.
In this regard, what happens with a freelancer who works for abroad and gets paid in bitcoin or any cryptocurrency? How does one “liquidate” currencies? Noting that there is no official “solution” to the fact of being paid in cryptoassets and having to bring dollars into the system, the NGO Bitcoin Argentina has proposed in recent days that the Central Bank accept the possibility of liquidating in local banks or in Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) the cryptoassets received from service exports, as long as they are above the threshold of US$36,000 annually.
