Argentine republic's brittle economy — stricken by endemic issues that take only worsened amid the COVID-nineteen pandemic — has sparked rising unrest in the land's agricultural sector. Earlier this calendar month, representatives of the bulk of national producers rejected President Alberto Fernandez's government's conclusion to suspend all exports of corn as office of its efforts to stem inflation and exert downward pressure on domestic corn prices.

The farmers' strike followed a similar wave of resistance in the oilseed and soy industries in Dec 2020. The rise in labor unrest poses a challenge for the stewards of the national economic system, given that agronomics contributes threescore% of national exports and roughly 10% of Argentina'due south gdp.

With the peso in freefall, some overseas entrepreneurs are seeing an opportunity for the uptake of a technology-driven solution that could provide an alternative to assistance farmers conditions Argentina's prolonged economical distress. In particular, CoreLedger and tech firm Abakus intend to launch a peer-to-peer marketplace that would establish a digital, blockchain-based "barter economy" betwixt agronomical producers in Argentine republic.

Tokenizing agricultural assets, the partners claim, would aid farmers to hedge against inflation and access liquidity both nationally and internationally. Such a marketplace would enable the exchange of tokenized titles by farmers for any other tokenized nugget on the platform — substantially establishing a class of parallel, asset-backed currency for local producers.

Abakus CEO Martin Furst contended that this setup would bring "greater agency to farmers," whereas the CEO of CoreLedger, Johannes Schweifer, claimed that the arroyo could offer critical relief. Unlike cash and stock-based saving plans, their statement is that agricultural-backed tokens functionally become stablecoins, backed by physical assets, and are therefore well-suited to a domestic context stricken by currency devaluation. Schweifer argued:

"In an aggrandizement-stricken state, access to physically-backed assets can be the difference betwixt surviving and thriving for these farmers."

In the aftermath of a 3.eight% ascension in consumer prices in October 2020, persistent peso volatility and tensions in government amongst the country'south ongoing, fraught negotiations with the Imf, local producers may indeed be more than receptive to trying alternative fintech strategies that can help them to escape the ruinous economic dynamics in the country.

Alongside blockchain entrepreneurs, cryptocurrency exchanges likewise appear to be alert to a market opportunity in the region's struggling economies, with Brazil's largest Bitcoin (BTC) commutation —Mercado Bitcoin — recently announcing plans to expand across Latin America, including Argentina. Data from Useful Tulips suggests that Argentine republic currently ranks seventh in the region in terms of peer-to-peer Bitcoin trade volume.