Due to the ongoing political and economic unrest in the nation, the rate at which Argentineans exchange their native fiat currency, the peso, for dollars has drastically decreased.
Martin Guzman, the country’s economy minister, abruptly resigned, shocking many because he was a key figure in the agreement the nation reached with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to restructure its debt to the body.
Other significant ministry officials, including Ramiro Tosi, Roberto Arias, and Rodrigo Ruete, also resigned in response to Guzman’s resignation.
Due to this, the peso to the dollar exchange rate on various cryptocurrency platforms reached record highs. Bloomberg reports that the rate increased by 6.6 percent to 257 Argentine pesos on the Binance exchange. Prices on the Lemon Cash exchange increased by 11% to 279 pesos.
Argentina’s citizens are rushing to convert their pesos into foreign currencies like the US dollar and stablecoins like USDT because of the current scenario.
The market did not return to its prior rates despite Silvina Batakis’ nomination as a new minister of the economy. Local media reported that the exchange rate dropped even more, to 280 pesos to the dollar, and on some exchanges even reached 300 pesos to the dollar.
Additionally, there was a huge surge in the trading volumes of stablecoins. The majority of traders attempted to anticipate the spike in traditional markets in order to take advantage of the arbitrage opportunities, and some operators claimed rises of 500 percent in volumes traded during some hours of the weekend.
The digital dollar outperformed the physical dollar in terms of the exchange rate, indicating that Argentinians prefer to buy these alternatives because they are easier to trade for other things and because they have more uses than traditional dollar bills. The changes are in line with a poll done in April by Americas Markets Intelligence, which revealed that 13% of people had invested in cryptocurrencies and that 18% were considering doing so.
