With Financial Restrictions Over, Bitcoin is to Unleash Full Potential in Argentina

It was October 2011, and amid a downward spiral of economic decline, then Argentinean President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner announced stringent restrictions to buy foreign currency and to send money overseas.
For the next four years, the media widely reported how financial repression made some Argentineans to adopt the cryptocurrency as an escape route from government controls. Conventional wisdom held that Bitcoin was thriving due to the pervasive regulations in force.
Financial repression is over
However, five years later, financial repression is mostly part of the past. In December 2015, the conservative candidate Mauricio Macri was elected president and he quickly reversed the monetary restrictions. The new context made most people wonder if the momentum for Bitcoin in the South American country has come.
Despite battling the arrival of Uber in the country and keeping tax rates high, Macri administration presents itself as a business-friendly government and its officials have repeatedly boasted about the important role of entrepreneurs and startups in the economy.
Far from unfounded speculations, Bitcoin entrepreneurs knew the cryptocurrency came to stay. For them, they say, this is just the beginning. ‘Bitcoin is not a tool to avoid taxes or wage a guerrilla-style, economic war against a corrupt government subjugating’ a whole country, Nubis Bruno, managing partner of Bitex.la SRL, a Bitcoin exchange and remittances company, told Cointelegraph: ‘It’s better to regard it as a solution to the structural problems of the financial system.’

This post was published at Coin Telegraph on 2016-10-08.