Crypto Outlook as Argentina Devalues Peso by 18% After Surprise Primary Election Result

The state of crypto is presented by Tron connecting the world to the power of Cryptocurrency. We are turning now to Argentina where the peso has plunged after the government devalued its currency by nearly 18%. And a libertarian candidate who has advocated for the elimination of the central bank and spoken favorably of Bitcoin won the primary presidential election in the country. Joining us now to discuss is Rubio founder and Ceo Sebastian Soranno. Welcome to the show, Sebastian. Thank you for having me. How are you doing? I'm doing great this morning. I would love to hear from you. We're getting all of these stories out of Argentina, what it's like in Argentina right now? What is the general sentiment? Uh what's going on there? Paint us a picture? So, um people is very surprised with this result. Um All surveys were given much lower numbers for uh what will be er m chances. So the most of domestic uh surveys were 20% and, and he won as the major candidate with 30% as an individual. These were not the general elections. Um So the there are several uh candidates from other parties, his party on his party. He was the only one. So he's the most voted one. he has, he has 30% and the next one has 20 then 17. So today's the, the candidate with most chances of becoming a, a president. He, um, has very strong opinions, um, was a professor in, in economic and started to appear in TV, shows with very strong opinions about reducing the, the size of the state lowering taxes and uh of the libertarian agenda. So this is a surprise. He has been um most of his votes are coming from low income people which makes it um something of a surprise because the Peronist party which is a populist uh a movement has been the one that always uh got the most votes uh from, from low lower income people. And, and he's like, and he's something like is very open to, he's I won't say that he's a bit bit coiner. Uh It is not a person that the uh one describing as a crypto person. Uh but he um he's open to liberty and to have money separated from the state. And I think it's a very auspicious thing for, for crypto in, in Argentina, you know, you brought up the the lower classes supporting him and you know, getting, getting, giving him some strength of the vote with his message is in part of it though, because of the rapid inflation that Argentina has suffered. Uh their their their, their peso is not, you know, the few pesos that they do have is not getting them as far as it used to. And he's saying, look, let's dollar, let's, let's, you know, let's get off the peso, let's get a, get rid of a central bank. You wanna, you wanna have a, a currency will base it on the dollar. Uh, you want to use crypto, go use crypto. I don't care that, that sort of resonates not only with the lower classes, but do you think it also resonates a lot with the, I mean, how is the crypto community in Argentina? Um uh received the, the, this morning's news. Um It's, it's very auspicious. Um I think like he um right, right now, a monthly inflation is 20% is sorry, like on Monday, there was a 23% devaluation in just one day and the inflation uh for a is gonna be estimated on 10% month, over month uh which is, is like, it is very rapid inflation. We, we are getting into the uh territory of a hyper inflation. So even there is people that think that they might like the government may, the current government um may not last until the end of the, their mandate and that there will be a, a much shorter transition. Um In that, in that sense, I I um while he is open to, to Bitcoin and, and liberty and to have uh um um private money uh has, has, as he describes and um Bitcoin, um he believes that um Argentinians, we, we have not have a good track record on having a central bank and maintaining the, the peg of uh maintaining the value of uh of uh um a local currency. So he proposes to destroy the central bank actually uh would like to bomb it or set it on fire and it has many, many public opinion is destroying um resemble the central bank can be a terrible waste of real estate. Um The, the uh uh but, but nonetheless, this was uh you know, when, when reading the press accounts of it, uh it, it seems almost as if II I think non agent uh observers, uh almost a, you know, or at least the writers seem to be in a bit of a panic uh comparing him to naive bole and, and uh you know, all sorts of uh right wing uh uh presidents outside of, of even uh South America. Um Do you think that what is the attitude within Argentina? Uh you know, he's saying, look, stop blaming me for the recent evaluation. I have nothing to do with this. This is, this is more of a sign of what's going on uh of, of the problems in Argentina. What in Argentina itself? How is he viewed in general? I mean, obviously there's a lot of polarization there. It's always been since I can remember. Um But what, what are we seeing here? Uh, now, I mean, what's the, what's the, what's the pulse of the average person on the street? Uh, I think a lot of people is optimistic. Um The majority of the population is asking, uh for, for a change, especially out of populism. Uh He use some, the opposition, um, which are not that different, like they, they like the, their second candidate uh in both the second candidate and him together and have like close to 60%. So, and, and they are not that that different, like um maybe in the communication, they are very um very, very different, but they uh the Kenyans that have chances are, are proposing to have a on a smaller state, uh more focused on security. And, and I think the people is a bit more optimistic today than there is right now. A lot of chaos and into like the this has accelerated. Um the distrust in, in the peso, we have had a lot of volume over the weekend. Um Crypto has become very major part of the conversation. Um especially because there, there aren't good sources of information about like um market data about how much the peso is worth. So overall, the weekend, everybody was looking at the price of stable coins and we recently launched our own stable coin and it has a big, big success on, on trading and people buying it a lot. And that has become a major part of the, the, the conversation and, and I think people is a bit worried for the short term but optimistic about the, about the, the long term and, and, and he's having a lot of criticism from, from the, the status school. Um I, but I think he's a very reasonable person. Um He, he uses this a lot being um uh very vocal and, and very like, have very strong opinions which helps him with his marketing. But he has, I like from when he started campaigning two years ago to now, uh at, at the beginning, he has a very narrow um message, very aggressive and he has been a smart into um tame it a little bit to be able to um uh reach more people and, and it's a um and he's a person that is well read like he is a, is um is a person that is clearly uh but it's an intellectual. Um And I, and I think like, I'm, I'm personally very optimistic. I, you, you said that you um there was a lot of volume over the weekend. How, how much was it a big bump in reaction to the news? Um like as the results started to come in, we, we were doing like 34 times more volume than, than a weekend volume. So it did, there was a lot of people um trading and also we got a lot of new users, like a ton of people asking how to um open an account and how to use it, asking for tutorials. Like we saw a lot of our networks. Uh So uh social networks like getting a lot more uh activity um because, well, for the short time, it's gonna be a very volatile market and, and people has historically uh protect themselves uh seeking dollars. And today um crypto dollars and like stable coins are uh the closest thing that they have and, and the only thing that works 24 7 and you don't have access to any other thing uh over the weekend. Right. Sebastian, we are going to have to leave it there. We've run out of time. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. That was Rubio founder and Ceo Sebastian Soranno.