Milei’s Victory in Argentina Elections Brings Bitcoin in Pesos Closer to ATH

Bitcoin, paired with ARS, moved toward a record high after reports of Milei’s victory in the presidential election of the proponent of digital gold, Javier Milei.

With 99.3% of the votes tallied, he led his rival — Sergio Massa — by 11.4 percentage points. The latter conceded defeat.

The incoming president of Argentina (to be inaugurated on December 10) is known for attacks on the central bank. He called it a fraud and ‘a mechanism by which politicians deceive good people with an inflation tax’.

In Bitcoin, Milei sees ‘the return of money to its original creator — the private sector.’ At the same time, the politician has not yet stated any intention to formalize digital gold as an official means of payment, as the authorities in El Salvador and the Central African Republic have done.

However, television host Max Keiser, who also serves as an adviser to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele on Bitcoin, wrote about a likely visit by a diplomatic crypto team to Argentina.

Nayib Bukele Clears ‘Team Bitcoin El Salvador’ To Visit Argentina: Max Keiser https://t.co/Z6uOd1g6YV

— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) November 20, 2023

Earlier Keiser said that at the start of 2024 three more countries would approve the first cryptocurrency as an official means of payment, but did not specify which ones.

JUST IN: Three nations in LATAM to make #Bitcoin legal tender in early 2024 — Max Keiser

Which? ? pic.twitter.com/2Sc8mRyGXk

— Bitcoin Archive (@BTC_Archive) November 20, 2023

Milei was congratulated by notable advocates of the first cryptocurrency, including MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor.

#Bitcoin is hope for Argentina. Congratulations @JMilei.

— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) November 20, 2023

\”Bitcoin is hope for Argentina. Congratulations,\” he wrote.

Experts surveyed by The Guardian, by contrast, forecast ‘social chaos and destruction’ for the second-largest economy in South America.  

According to CoinGecko, the BTC/ARS rate jumped more than 2.5%, to 13.2 million pesos. 

Currently, the digital gold is valued at 13.18 million pesos, with daily growth slowing to 2.4%.

For comparison, in U.S. dollars the rise is 1.9%. At the same time, the peso strengthened against the USD by 0.1%.

In the local market Bitcoin reached ATH (13.37 million) on November 16, when a majority of participants in the decentralized prediction market Polymarket placed bets on Milei’s victory.

On August 13, digital gold rose by 20% in a single day to 10.2 million pesos. The move followed the victory of the future president in the primaries.

In 2022 Milei was sued for promoting a purported cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.

In 2023, the Central Bank of Argentina proposed new guidelines that could complicate the work of companies tied to digital assets.