Bitcoin prices in Argentina higher by 38%

In the past two weeks, Argentina’s government imposed severe measures on the purchase of US dollars and cryptocurrencies. The country did it to preserve its foreign reserves. As a result, Bitcoin’s demand over peer-to-peer exchanges soared up leading to a staggering 35% premium imposition.

While the mother of all coins (Bitcoin) was trading in the range of $9,300 across the globe, Argentina’s major local exchange Ripio was selling it at $12,556.60. And the premium streak continues even after 24 hours. At press time, Coingecko reports Bitcoin prices to be $9,374.14. But Ripio continues to sell BTC at $12,309.52. 

Bitcoin price premiunSource: Ripio.com
 
The premium imposition went unnoticed until a Reddit user reported it. When AltcoinBuzz checked the “Bitcoin real-time quote” on Ripio, the observation was staggering.
The bitcoin price has been much higher than the global market since October 28th. And it coincides with the day the country’s Central Bank imposed US dollar capital controls. These restrictions pushed Argentinian’s to peer-to-peer exchanges.
According to Coin Dance 16,436,088 bitcoins were traded on P2P exchange LocalBitcoins in the entire week of 2nd November. Last week’s bitcoin volume actually surpassed July’s high of $15.4 million. It was also noticed that the premium imposition over LocalBitcoins was 20%, almost half of Ripio’s. 
 
Argentina has fallen back into an economic crisis once again. And this is because it failed to learn from its decade-old mistakes. Effectively, the underlying cause of the current situation is the permitted excessive foreign-currency debt.
 
In an attempt of damage control, the Argentinean Banks brought in capital control and prohibited BTC buying using credit cards. In order to preserve the forex reserves, it is also now cutting down the trading desk jobs.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.