Worsening Economy Leads to Record Bitcoin Trading in Argentina

As the financial crisis is deepening in Argentina, people are increasingly moving towards digital currencies. Trading in Bitcoin has reportedly doubled over the past week.

Argentines trading more Bitcoin

In fiat terms, the Argentine population is trading more Bitcoin than they ever have. Trading in the country exploded to about 101 million Argentine pesos or $1.4 million USD over the past week. This has broken the weekly trade volume record in the country which was previously set at 69 million Argentine pesos. The surge in Bitcoin use is coming at a time when Argentina is going through its worst economic recession to date.

LocalBitcoins, a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange wrote on Twitter that the recent volume surge is an “absolute record” for the country. However, this isn’t completely right. In terms of fiat volumes, this is definitely one of the high points for Bitcoin trades in Argentina. In the week ending June 27, Argentines traded Bitcoin worth 59 million pesos. In US dollar terms, the volume flew from $500,000 to $808,000, according to data from Useful Tulips.

Picture still hazy

In terms of the number of Bitcoin traded, the absolute record was 228 BTC which was made in April 2016. Last week, the trading volume was 92 BTC, which was less than half of the previous record. However, even with this small piece of information at hand, it is clear that trading volume has definitely doubled over the past week in the country.

It appears that the bad shape of the economy is pushing traders to invest in safe-haven assets like Bitcoin as they aim to preserve their funds. The policies of Mauricio Macri, the former president of Argentina made them receive the most “miserable country’ on Earth title. Now they are being compared to Venezuela. The recently elected president Alberto Fernandez and his policies have not been able to create an economic shift yet.