The plan will be implemented in the “coming months.” Local crypto exchanges SatoshiTango, Buenbit, Ripio and Belo, and Mexico-based Bitso will be part of the initiative.
Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires will let its citizens pay taxes using crypto. According to the local media, the initiative is part of a digitization plan “Buenos Aires+,” that the city is planning on in order to expand the access of citizens to documents and government services.
The head of the Buenos Aires City government Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta said:
“I believe that blockchain technology will give the government the possibility to make all its acts more transparent and encourage the participation of citizens in a deeper way.”
Further, he added:
“The city is not going to have crypto in public accounts, but through an agreement with virtual wallets we are going to add one more payment option to the ones we already have, with the idea of making things easier.”
As per Diego Fernández, the city’s secretary of innovation and digital transformation, the plan will be implemented in the “coming months.” Local crypto exchanges SatoshiTango, Buenbit, Ripio and Belo, and Mexico-based Bitso will be part of the initiative.
Buenos Aires to Adopt Crypto
Some other initiatives will be implemented along with the “Buenos Aires+” plan. In particular, the city will have a digital ID system to make the entire process of documentation and payments simple. Besides, citizens will be able to manage different government offices and services in the same system.
Argentina’s capital has been heading towards crypto adoption for quite a long time. In March, Buenos Aires released a white paper proposing a blockchain-based digital identity platform. Its goal is to provide the city’s residents with the ability to control their personal data. The platform is expected to launch operations between the last quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023. Notably, the platform will include vaccination certificates and COVID-19 test results in the second quarter of 2022. Later this year, it will also include civil registry documents and educational documents.
Cryptocurrencies have gained a footing in Argentina due to several reasons. Firstly, it is relatively cheap to run an energy-consuming Bitcoin (BTC) mining operation, because the cost of electricity is kept relatively low. Secondly, Argentina is seeing an extremely high inflation rate, at over 50%. And Bitcoin may help to buffer against it. Currently, the crypto adoption in Argentina is below 16 percent, but it is much higher than in other Latin American countries.
For example, in Brazil, the crypto adoption is 7 percent, while in Mexico it is only 6 percent. Argentinians are interested in cryptocurrencies, with more and more of them making any kind of crypto investment.
Daria is an economic student interested in the development of modern technologies. She is eager to know as much as possible about cryptos as she believes they can change our view on finance and the world in general.
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