Cryptocurrencies under control? Argentina does not want anonymity

The Argentine authorities have just started trying to find out who of their citizens owns and trades cryptocurrencies and on what scale they are doing. How do they want to learn the secrets of a decentralized market? Urging traditional financial institutions to cooperate: banks, investment funds and stock exchanges.

The idea of ​​taking control of cryptocurrency trading is not new. Governments of many countries dream of supervising their trading. Some are still trying, others have given up, others have decided to work on their own state-owned cryptocurrencies - these include, among others USA, where after the first wave of criticism implemented by Facebook Libra, work began on the digital dollar. Sweden is also testing its cryptocurrency in blockchain technology.

Argentina: we are doing a cryptocurrency list of citizens

The Argentine authorities do not want to create their own cryptocurrency yet, but they want to know exactly how much and what altcoins and tokens their citizens have. The Financial Information Department in Argentina just announced it, which plans to be accurate "Analysis of the possession of cryptocurrency resources in Argentina".

What does it mean? The Argentine government will carry out a kind of cryptocurrency possession by the citizens of this country. He wants to know exactly who and how many cryptocurrencies he has, as well as when he bought and sold them and what profit or loss he recorded on these transactions. And it is not about exchanging fiduciary currencies for cryptocurrencies, but also about trading on cryptocurrency exchanges.

So it is clear that it is not about protection against money laundering, crime or allowing the financing of illegal enterprises, but about the control of the possession of digital currencies by Argentinians. For what purpose? We can only guess this. Officially, it is about adapting to "world financial standards", but the Argentine government of course does not specify what this may be, or what standards exactly are to be applied. There is a lot of talk about cryptocurrencies coming from illegal sources, alleged crimes and frauds related to them. In the pro-government media, there is a festival of discouraging cryptocurrencies and attempts to show that this is something not entirely legal. And that's while Argentine Central Bank works on the implementation of blockchain technology in financial operations, financing training in this area and supporting the publication of books on this technology ...

If the government's plan is implemented, Argentina will be the first country to have full control over cryptocurrency ownership and trading. All financial institutions in the country are to help. Cooperation in this area is to be obligatory for banks, stock exchanges, brokers, financial funds and even payment card operators.

Cryptocurrencies better than pesos

Where did the idea to check the ownership of cryptocurrencies by Argentineans come from? To understand this, it is worth remembering the financial situation of the country, which has not changed for many years. It is a permanent economic crisis and galloping inflation, which means that citizens do not want to own a peso, because it loses its value practically overnight.

In this situation, it is not surprising that more and more Argentineans are choosing cryptocurrencies. In some companies, monthly withdrawals are already being paid out in them. Others exchange pesos for Bitcoiny and other altcoins and tokens at the first opportunity. They also place their savings in them.

The country is shaken by successive crises, bankruptcies of the largest companies and unemployment are rising. A low budget, therefore, is looking for any opportunity to patch up larger and larger holes. Taking control of cryptocurrencies could stop the outflow of interest in pesos and thus increase revenues to the central budget.