Bitcoin-friendly candidate Javier Milei wins Argentina’s presidential election with a 12% lead over his opponent Sergio Massa. The 2 candidates’ diametrically opposed programs sparked a heated presidential debate, although this ultimately played into Milei’s hands. The latter, advocating dollarization of the country, is described as “pro-Bitcoin”, but is this description reasonable?
Javier Milei, pro-Bitcoin, is elected President of Argentina
So, Javier Milei wins Argentina’s presidential election, beating his opponent Sergio Massa by a 12% margin.
Argentine presidential election results
The 2 candidates presented a program at opposite ends of the spectrum, Sergio Massa – who won the first round – being the current center-left Minister of the Economy, and Javier Milei a self-proclaimed libertarian “anarcho-capitalist”. The latter was also highly critical of central banks, and backed his candidacy with a populist and rigorously anti-system rhetoric.
Today marks the beginning of the end of decadence. […] The impoverishing model of the “caste” is over. Today, we adopt the model of freedom, to become a world power once again.”
Javier Milei, during his victory speech
A striking contrast is thus visible between the 2 characters, which moreover led to several breaking points during the presidential debate. Javier Milei was highly critical of the current government, insisting on its “decadence”, “failure” and “impoverishment”, while denouncing a “campaign of fear” waged against him.
Argentina’s new president Javier Milei has big plans for the government. pic.twitter.com/yJQYW0KwLy
– Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 19, 2023
For his part, Sergio Massa set out to undermine Javier Milei’s ultra-liberal agenda, including the elimination of certain ministries, transport and education subsidies, and his program to dollarize the country.
Milei’s victory caused quite a stir within the crypto ecosystem, with the latter being abusively described as a “Pro-Bitcoin” candidate, even to the point of being compared with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador who gave legal tender to BTC in his country.
And yet, there is no trace of any adoption of Bitcoin anywhere in the Libertarian candidate’s program. This label was only given to him because of a remark he made earlier this year, in which he declared that Bitcoin represented “the return of money to its original creator, the private sector,” pointing out that “central banking was a swindle”.
In other words, Javier Milei did not propose giving free rein to Bitcoin in Argentina. Instead, the future president, who will take office on December 10, intends to solve Argentina’s inflation problem (a 180% rise is forecast for the end of the year) by dollarizing his country and draining the country’s public spending.
