Argentina elects pro-Bitcoin president Javier Milei

A runoff election in Argentina, Sunday, resulted in a win for Javier Milei, a libertarian on the political right who wants to dollarize the country’s economy and has expressed support for Bitcoin.

Milei won about 56% of the vote versus just over 44% in the runoff, in Latin America’s third most populous nation.

In a country which has recently witnessed triple-digit rates of inflation, Milei sees bitcoin and digital currencies as an effort to “return money to its original creator: the private sector.”

Emphasizing Bitcoin’s finite supply, he regards it as a more secure alternative to traditional mediums like gold or silver​​​​.

Milei, known for his anti-central banking stance, has criticized the central bank for “cheating good people” through inflationary tax. He claimed that he would “blow it up,” calling it a scam, even releasing a cinematic political ad in 2021 while running for a seat in parliament, in which he’s seen destroying a model representing the central bank with a Thor-like hammer.

His criticism is particularly poignant given Argentina’s high inflation rates, which reached 135% in 2023​​. The peso has fallen in value, resulting in all-time highs for bitcoin ( BTC ), currently about ARS 13.2 million per BTC.

Milei has been involved in controversies, including being sued for allegedly promoting a Ponzi scheme called Coinx in Argentina. He denied any misconduct, comparing the company’s actions to those of a typical bank​​.

Despite his support for cryptocurrencies, Milei has not proposed making bitcoin legal tender in Argentina, as it is in El Salvador . Instead, he has called for dollarizing the Argentine economy , as a way of dealing with the country’s rampant inflation​​​​​​ problem.

While Milei’s views on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies reflect a strong preference for private sector-controlled money, and a skepticism towards central banking, it’s unclear what a Milei administration will mean in practice when it comes to integrating crypto into national economic policies.

Updated November 20, 2023 at 8:35 am ET, clarifying Milei’s anti-central bank political ad was from 2021.

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