Inside Argentina's $300 Billion Parallel Economy

About this episode

The episode explores Argentina's parallel economy and the adoption of stablecoins amidst economic crises and distrust in formal financial systems.

Argentina's decades-long economic crises and hyperinflation has a major impact on how Argentine's participate in the economy. The recent story that's been told about Argentina is that people are adopting stablecoins to protect against inflation and currency devaluation. But that's only part of the story... The real story involves long-standing distrust of government and the banks, and overbearing taxes that drive Argentinians to the informal economy. While stablecoin volumes in Argentina surpass $90 billion, Argentina still has over $200 billion in cash circulating in the country, and hidden under mattresses. It's the second-largest holder of US Dollar cash, behind the US itself. In this episode of Money Trails, presented by @StellarDevelopmentFoundation , we explore why Argentines keep their money outside of the formal system, and why they are increasingly adopting stablecoins. In this episode, we’re joined by Manuel Beaudroit, the Co-founder & CEO of Belo. Watch the full episode on YouTube. 00:00 - Argentina's economic crisis 01:45 - Arbolitos on Calle Florida 02:48 - The Blue Dollar 04:01 - Distrust and taxes 07:20 - Why Argentines keep their money outside the formal…

People in this episode

Guest: Manuel Beaudroit

Topics covered

• Argentina's economy
• stablecoins
• hyperinflation
• informal economy
• government distrust
• currency devaluation

Keywords

• Argentina
• stablecoins
• hyperinflation
• informal economy
• government distrust
• Blue Dollar
• cash circulation

Sponsors

StellarDevelopmentFoundation

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Argentina, Calle Florida, Argentina, US

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