Latin America - Obi in Mexico / Pegasus / IMF / Lopez bill / Argentina AML
Critical Policy Intelligence for Latin America Bitcoin & Blockchain
I hope you are having a great Friday. Thanks again for reading Barracuda Briefing.
In case you missed it, here are the latest Barracuda Insights (for paying subscribers) to keep you up-to-date:
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele’s cyber surveillance tactics raise specter of US sanctions | 9 February 2023
Russia-Iran cooperation around a gold-backed stablecoin could signal next steps for Venezuela’s Petro | 1 February 2023
Mexico’s Bitcoin Billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego’s ally in congress steps into the 2024 presidential race | 25 January 2023
In Colombia, a blitz of regulatory action against US crypto firms is threatening the country’s pilot | 18 January 2023
Brazil’s deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Galipolo has a turbulent road ahead with his digital currency proposal SUR | 11 January 2023
Here is the most critical policy intelligence from this week if you are a Bitcoin, blockchain and/or financial technology professional making decisions on Latin America.
Mexico’s Senate hosted high-profile Bitcoin entrepreneur Obi Nwosu in congress on 11 February. Obi is working on a Bitcoin project called Fediment. Senator Indira Kempis and the Movimiento Ciudadano party in Mexico are attempting to leverage the inequality narrative to push for adoption of Bitcoin technologies.
Salvadoran magistrate Paula Patricia Velasquez claims that she has been surveilled by NSO spyware. Apple alerted the magistrate to a spyware infection in her phone. Multiple opposition members, journalists and critics of Nayib Bukele’s government have seen their devices infected with Pegasus, a spyware made by Israeli NSO Group.
The Washington DC-based IMF said that El Salvador’s bitcoin risks have not materialized. But the US multilateral lending agency is encouraging El Salvador to reduce its exposure to Bitcoin and showed wariness toward the tokenized bonds that Bukele and Bitfinex are trying to float.
Colombia’s lower chamber passed a crypto bill that sets out to regulate crypto exchanges. The legislation coming from congress competes with the executive branch’s crypto sandbox, an initiative led by securities regulator SFC for piloting fiat-to-crypto transactions through bank-exchange partnerships. Former congressman Mauricio Toro and Julian Lopez are leading the bill in congress. Both figures come from the Green Alliance party. They are aligned with current president Gustavo Petro.
In Venezuela, several exchanges have filled the void left behind by the LocalBitcoins.com shut down. LocalBitcoins had been declining substantially in the run up to the shut down. Alternatively, Bisq and HodlHodl are two small platforms being used in Venezuela for P2P transactions. CZ’s Binance platform, however, is the primary and most dominant player in Venezuela for crypto transactions.
Argentina is debating a reform to its anti-money laundering laws in congress. In what is being considered a likely scenario, the reform will mean that Argentina's securities regulator needs to set up a legal and regulatory framework for crypto firms. The impulse to reform Argentina’s AML is to comply with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards. Argentina is set to be audited in 2024 by FATF.
Bitfy, a Brazilian Fintech, is enabling Brazil’s largest public bank Banco do Brasil to accept tax payments in crypto. Lucas Schoch is the mastermind of Bitfy.
Barracuda Briefing is a weekly analysis of critical policy & power shaping Bitcoin and blockchain in Latin America. It goes out to subscribers for free every Friday.