Bitcoin in Argentina is more expensive than it looks, brokerage manager says

In an article sent to Livecoins, Denise Cinelli, Country Manager at CryptoMarket, says that the price of bitcoin in Argentina is even more expensive than it seems, even though the local government is manipulating the dollar exchange rate.

According to her, Bitcoin is seen as digital gold because, like physical gold, it is scarce and there is only a limited amount on the market. This is because when the last Bitcoin is mined, it will not be possible to create new ones, it will only be possible to buy from a person who has already acquired it before.

Because of this, it is considered by many to be one of the best safe haven investments as it is not only decentralized but also has the advantage of being digital and much more practical to store than gold bars.

Speaking of cryptocurrencies in general, we have stablecoins, which are usually pegged to the dollar price and follow the same principle: it is much easier to keep digital dollars in a wallet than banknotes in a safe or under the mattress.

Another important point is the time to settle these dollars, which is much more practical in the digital format, within a trading platform, which already has buyers with an open buy market order and a fee of less than 1%, than taking bills at a bureau de change or exchange at the bank, paying very high taxes and commissions.

Argentine case

The price of Bitcoin in Argentina surpassed 6.61 million pesos to reach an all-time high according to the official government listing, but the value could be even higher thanks to price distortions created by the state.

This is because Argentina, with its worst inflation in 30 years, is facing massive financial difficulties. Inflation in the country exceeded 100% in the cumulative 12 months. By comparison, in Brazil the same index was 4.65%.

This means that the price of many goods more than doubled in a very short time and the country’s currency melted. One of the fastest growing assets was Bitcoin.

Bitcoin in Argentina has skewed data

The cryptocurrency rose 50% against the ARS in one year according to the government quote, reaching an all-time high. However, Bitcoin in Argentina is even more expensive.

This camouflage occurs because the government of the neighboring country is so intrusive that it has created its own denomination for the dollar, in fact there are 15 different denominations among them: the Coldplay dollar, the soybean dollar and Qatar and several others. And that changes how the data appears on conversion platforms like Google and CMC, which convert using the official government dollar.

The exchange rate used by the CMC uses one of the official dollar rates provided by the government and available only to the Central Bank. The reality is that Bitcoin is even more expensive in Argentina, costing almost 12 million pesos at CryptoMarket. This means that the real all-time high, outside of biased government data, happened in 2021 and Bitcoin was valued at ARS 14 million.

But it won’t take long to reach the all-time high for BTC in Argentina, because while we’re not currently in ATH on Ars, given that the Btc/Ars pair is trading at $11,663.00, at this level of inflation and rising Ars/Usd exchange rate which is currently in the blue price at $400 ars for every dollar, we can deduce that the $14,200,000 ATH will inevitably be breached, with the logical exception of Bitcoin falling in dollars to levels below $20,000 , which used to be in 2022.

Yet the price of real Bitcoin still gave an expressive return, excluding inflation, according to data from the brokerage Cryptomarket. In 2023, the real BTC return was 72.62% in ARS.

It is worth remembering that bitcoin has already appreciated by 210.00% between 2015 and 2023, even with a dollar manipulated by the government in Argentina.

Cryptocurrency was the best asset of the 10s and continues to perform well even with high price volatility.

Denise Cinelli Country Manager Credito Maurico Vega
Denise Cinelli Country Manager. Credit: Maurico Vega.

Source: Live Coins

follow:
\