Latam Insights Encore: Milei's Call for Crypto Independence Highlights the Problems of State Adoption

Welcome to Latam Insights Encore, a deep dive into Latin America’s most relevant economic and cryptocurrency news from last week. In this edition, we examine Argentine President Javier Milei’s recent statements about maintaining a separation between crypto and the state and how this reveals a pivotal problem with the expected rise of nation-state crypto adoption.

Latam Insights Encore: Milei’s Crypto Independence Call Reveals an Adoption Dilemma

The recent election of pro-crypto President Donald Trump and the expectation of unprecedented adoption of bitcoin by the U.S. are raising concerns among traditional crypto advocates. While these developments validate the criticisms they have been expressing for years, they may also usher in an era of greater control and oversight over bitcoin and cryptocurrency, given what’s at stake.

Recently, Argentine President Javier Milei criticized the move of states toward cryptocurrency, raising alarms about the possible effects it could have. At an event organized by Meta in Buenos Aires, Milei stated that cryptocurrencies were empowering technologies that allowed citizens to break the currency monopoly.

Warning about the effect of a possible takeover, he stressed:

Don’t let the states take over and carry out cryptocurrencies. Do not allow the state to put its hand in there, because – from there – they will turn us into slaves.

Read more: Milei Advocates for Crypto Independence: ‘Don’t Let States Take Over’

While most agree that Milei was referring to the central bank digital currency (CBDC) menace, there is another way to interpret this call, as a new wave of state crypto adoption is upon us. As large states begin to amass significant quantities of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, they will also need to strive for greater control over the operations and transactions they conduct, given the holdings they control.

From this perspective, Bitcoin—a project born from the necessity of separating money from the state—could end up being controlled by states as they seek to assert their dominance in a hypothetical Cold War-style dispute over Bitcoin. While the Bitcoin network is distributed, a significant portion remains under the control of companies subject to regulations. Bitcoin developers, the human side of the cryptocurrency, are also vulnerable.

A state takeover of Bitcoin, while potentially beneficial to stakeholders who consider it a store of value, would undermine its original purpose of providing financial freedom to those who value it as a medium of exchange.