Key Takeaways
- Argentina’s central bank maintained its ban on crypto banking, delaying digital asset integration.
- Officials cited economic fragility, pushing potential crypto deregulation to a possible second Milei term.
- Despite the ban, banking groups are building institutional stablecoin projects through separate entities.
Argentina Rejects Near Future Changes In Crypto Banking Integration
While Argentina has reached one of the largest cryptocurrency adoption levels in Latam and the world, the government does not contemplate digital assets’ integration into its banking and payment system, at least in the near term.
At an event organized by the Argentine Payment Chamber, Juan Curutchet, Superintendent of Financial and Foreign Exchange Institutions at the Central Bank of Argentina (BCRA) reiterated that there would be no changes regarding crypto and digital assets in banking and payment channels in the near future.
“You didn’t ask me about the dollar or crypto. That’s fine, because nothing is going to happen this year. But I do see it as a possibility during a second Milei presidency,” Curutchet revealed before leaving the stage of the event.
The statement contradicts alleged leaks hinting at a possible deregulation of digital assets, with bank sources claiming a draft to allow banks to offer crypto services was in the works.
This means the 2022 BCRA’s ban on financial institutions offering crypto services will hold, with its elimination depending on the state of the economy before an upcoming presidential election.
Curutchet acknowledged that Argentina’s economic standing offered limited leverage to advance these solutions, but stressed that these were valid issues to discuss.
“In a country where the perception of vulnerability and fragility has decreased significantly, more than today, and with full economic freedom, these are issues on which progress must be made. Today we have a level of fragility that does not allow us to advance as much. But I think there is a pending agenda for later,” Curutchet concluded.
Even so, banking groups are advancing their own stablecoins projects to offer programmable money features for institutional money management, featuring treasury management operations, payments conditioned on on-chain events, and collateralized credit management.
These conglomerates are developing these initiatives through separate companies to respect the current ban. Banking integration would be delayed until the central bank lifts the ongoing prohibitions.
Even with this prohibition, Argentina became the second-largest crypto hub in Latam, receiving over $88.5 billion in crypto value in the 12 months ending June 30, according to Chainalysis.
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