Bitcoin in Argentine banks: the Central Bank returns the file to a second mandate for Milei

Conditional promise in Buenos Aires. A senior official of the Argentine Central Bank (BCRA) recognizes that we will have to move forward on cryptocurrencies, but neither this year nor the next. The file will await a possible second term of Javier Milei and therefore 2028 at the earliest. Banks have already been waiting since May 2022, when the BCRA prohibited them from offering cryptocurrencies to their customers.

The scene takes place at Pulso 2026, the meeting of the Argentine Chamber of Means of Payment. Juan Curutchet heads banking and foreign exchange supervision at the BCRA. He is about to leave the stage. Then he changes his mind. “You didn’t ask me about the dollar or cryptos. This is very good, because this year nothing will happen. But I see it possible during a second Milei presidency,” he says, according to the story published by La Nación on October 7, 2026.

The calendar is easy to deduce. The Argentine presidential election takes place in October 2027 and the winner will take office the following December 10. No relaxation before 2028, provided that the outgoing president runs again and wins.

The regulator cites the state of the country to justify this delay.

“Today, we have a level of fragility that does not allow us to move forward as much. But I believe there is an agenda pending for later.”

We have to go back to May 2022. Banco Galicia and the online bank Brubank then announce that their customers will be able to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies from their application. Less than 48 hours later, the Argentine Central Bank published a standard banning cryptocurrencies from all financial institutions. She cites the risks for users and for the financial system, in a country where inflation then reached 55.1% over one year.

Four years have passed. The ban still stands, under a president elected at the end of 2023 promising to close this same Central Bank. The industry took the statement literally. Julián Colombo heads the Bitso exchange platform in South America. “Probably, during a possible second presidency of Milei, they will authorize it,” he anticipates in Forbes Argentina.

You wonder what is keeping the Central Bank busy in the meantime. The answer is in three letters: PSP, for payment service providers, these digital wallets and fintechs which have grown faster than the rules. Juan Curutchet describes a banking system reduced by decades of monetary erosion, coupled with a sophisticated payment system. His own superintendency was “bereft of resources” to keep up with the movement.

The BCRA therefore created a department responsible for controlling these actors. It also tightened the obligation on banks to report fraud, and reports jumped by 150% as a result. The superintendent finally wants to be able to withdraw a license as quickly as he grants it. He cites the precedent of exchange offices, of which the country had around 300 licenses under Mauricio Macri before nominees took advantage of them once exchange controls were reestablished.

The argument is defensible. Opening the bitcoin counters with an overwhelmed supervisor would be like adding another floor on fragile foundations.