Argentina Settles Export Deal With Paraguay Using Bitcoin

Argentina has settled an export deal with Paraguay in Bitcoin (BTC), Cointelegraph en Español reported on Thursday, Feb. 14.

In a reported first for both countries, Paraguay has bought pesticides and fumigation products  worth $7,100 from Argentina, using cryptocurrency to settle the deal. The purchase was paid for in BTC and then converted into Argentine peso to settle accounts with the exporter of the agricultural chemicals.

To proceed with the payments, Argentina applied to Bitex — a Latin American financial services provider that supports Bitcoin payments.

According to the chief marketing office of Bitex, Manuel Beaudroit, the company is a part of the Argentine government’s program Exporta Simple, which facilitates the export of goods and services worth less than $15,000. Bitex, in its turn, aims to make cross-border payments for such deals more efficient.

As Cointelegraph reported, Bitex previously participated in a crypto project initiated by Argentine bank Masventas. In May 2018, Masventas announced it was considering creating an alternative to the SWIFT payment system used between banks globally. Bitex was appointed to provide the necessary ecosystem for supporting BTC transactions.

In other news for Argentina, this month, the country’s official state transport card SUBE (Sistema Único de Boleto Electrónico) — used by over seven million people in 37 locations — has started accepting BTC.

Meanwhile in Paraguay, global blockchain tech firm and Bitcoin mining manufacturer Bitfury partnered with South Korean peer-to-peer knowledge commons research firm, Commons Foundation, to launch several mining facilities in the country.