Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of Latin America’s most relevant crypto and economic news during the last week. In this issue: El Salvador proposes using crypto as a tool to complete international settlements with Russia, Argentina registers its first bitcoin-funded company, and the Polymarket Venezuelan presidential election bet is still undecided.
Latam Insights: El Salvador Proposes Using Crypto for International Settlements; First Bitcoin-Funded Company Registered in Argentina
This article was published more than a year ago. Some information may no longer be current.
WRITTEN BY
SHARE
Russian Diplomat: El Salvador Proposes Settling Trade With Crypto
El Salvador has proposed settling trade with Russia using cryptocurrency, Alexander Ilyukhin, the First Secretary of the Russian Embassy in Nicaragua, has said. El Salvador, which has a dollarized economy, aims to overcome challenges associated with traditional financial systems.
El Salvador’s reported crypto payment settlement proposal occurs amid the ongoing battle for influence between Russia and Ukraine. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has been urging El Salvador to support Kyiv as it faces Russian forces. However, the Russian diplomat emphasizes that El Salvador’s government remains neutral and is also interested in establishing trade ties with Russia.
“We have difficulties with calculations because the official currency in El Salvador is the US dollar. As an alternative, El Salvador offers to use cryptocurrency in trade operations,” Ilyukhin said.
First Bitcoin Capital-Funded Company Registered in Argentina
Argentina is gradually modernizing its law framework to open to new technologies and cryptocurrency. Last week, the Justice Ministry of Argentina reported that a company had been registered using cryptocurrency funds, marking it as the first time this has happened in the country. This milestone comes on the heels of the enactment of a rule allowing companies to receive contributions and be launched using cryptocurrency and digital assets.
The company was founded with a capital of almost $500 divided into 0.00457621 BTC, which had a price of $302.5 for the day of the registry and $194.99 in USDC.
According to Criptonoticias, the process logistics differed from a regular company registry. The cryptocurrency used for this procedure had to be transferred to custodial wallets in nationally registered exchanges like Lemon and Ripio and had to be held there.
Polymarket $3.8 Million Venezuelan Presidential Election Bet Still Undecided
Polymarket, the cryptocurrency-based prediction markets platform, has not been able to resolve the bet on the outcome of the Venezuelan presidential election. While the country’s electoral authority, the Electoral National Council (CNE), proclaimed President Nicolas Maduro as the winner, the opposition forces contested the election. This is due to the lack of a complete breakdown of the results, which does not allow for the full verification of the election numbers. Several resolution proposals have been presented for the bet, but all have been disputed, with over $3.8 million waiting for its outcome.
