The capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, announced that its government will soon accept tax payment with cryptocurrency.
Mayor, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta said that the Buenos Aires City government will receive Argentine pesos from citizens instead of crypto. Crypto will be obtained via conversions carried out by “leading” crypto companies.
The crypto exchanges participating in this new policy include local firms SatoshiTango, Buenbit, Ripio and Belo, as well as Mexico-based exchange Bitso. Payments made in crypto will be converted to Argentine Peso, before being deposited in the government repository.
“The city is not going to have crypto in public accounts, but through an agreement with virtual wallets we are going to add one more payment option to the ones we already have, with the idea of making things easier” declared Rodríguez Larreta via an announcement.
After successfully relying on a digital ally to overlook the health crisis during the pandemic, Mayor Larreta believes that crypto is the way to develop in the future.
During the pandemic the government and people of Buenos Aires had a digital ally named ‘Boti’, it was a chatbot on WhatsApp that resolved queries about vaccination shifts, swabs and much more.
As time goes on, many governments are recognising the potential of cryptocurrency as a mode of payment. Recently, Brazil’s Rio De Janeiro announced that they will be accepting municipal tax payments in cryptocurrency from 2023 onwards.