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Unequal access to technology often means unequal access to the benefits of technology.
As crypts enters its peak or its decent, depending on who you ask. Latin America offers the perfect testing ground for the technology's practical application. Specifically, Argentine and Venezuelans would appear to be the test group for the use of crypto currencies as an alternative to unstable and unreliable national currencies.
In a parallel world, both Argentina and Venezuela would be the region's richest countries, were it not for their leaders penchants for mismanagement and corruption, with oil reserves greater than those of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela should be thriving, Instead, its experiment with socialism has results in more than two million people leaving the country, a wrecked economy and a humanitarian crisis that threatens regional stability.
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Argentina's current crisis is far more complex, and yet also more predictable due to the country's history of boom and bust.
Despite the initial optimism voiced by foreign investors when a right-leaning pro-maker government come to power in 2017, such optimism has not been reflected in support for the peso.
The peso has suffered due to , amongst other factors, strengthening dollar, dwindling foreign currency reserves and investor mistrust, Inflation caused by past policies of over-printing money to service local debt combined with the current government's elimination of energy subsidies means that Argentine can's be sure on Monday what their money will be worth on Friday.
The theatrics of Argentina's politics also doesn't inspire confidence, and breaking news can often send the peso on nosedives, Stories of corruption unfold like Emmy-winning soap operas.
For example, the recently discovered notebooks of a government choler reveal that businesses close to the current president are alleged to have paid brides to its bitter rivals form the previous government. Regardless of their ideological differences, Latin America's political class is often united in its penchant for corruption.
The cyclical nature of Argentina's currency crisis is what gives some hope that the country can become the first to develop a thriving national Bitcoin market, Already a hotbed for blockchain-based companies such as Rio. Buenos Aires has a higher percentage of businesses that accept Bitcoin than New York, By the end of 2018, Argentina will have more than 100 Bitcoin ATM's . a number expected to increase to 1,600 by the end of 2019.
For Agustina Fainguersch. and argentine entrepreneur who helps companies, including many in Latin America as managing partner at Wolox, manage digital transformation through the adoption of technologies such as the blockchain, Bitcoin is practical solution for the average Argentine just trying to make ends meet,
"In Argentina, we exchange pesos into dollars and then back again within the span of a week," she says, Given that the peso has lost 50 percent of its value against the dollar since the beginning of 2018, most are changing money for the purpose of short-term survival rather than long-term savings, "Many Argentine are often just trying to make sure they have enough money to cover basic expenses."
That volatility, however, is also a risk that places Bitcoin at a disadvantage when compared to the U.S dollar, also widely available, the dollar is relatively stable and relatively easy to exchange though not without burdens and risks, such as falsified bills,
The future of Bitcoin will depend on which narratives become the meta-narratives.
For Matias Bianca, the Argentine political scientist and founder of the regional thing tank Asuncion Del sure, the demand for Bitcoin in Argentina follows a familiar pattern: Like much technology that promises to democratize access to something, the benefits of said technology most likely end up helping a wealthy few at the expense of the increasingly hard-luck masses.