For decades, Argentina has lived with economic instability: inflation, a wide gap between macroeconomic variables and the real economy, and heavy external debt. Yet in that context, the country exports engineers to the world's best technology teams and has one of the highest crypto adoption rates on the planet: nearly one in five Argentines uses it in daily life. The country combines three elements that make it unique: a deep pool of talent, urgent needs in its economy, and a collaborative community that already uses crypto.
Start with the talent. Mercado Libre, Globant, Auth0 and Ualá all came from here, among other major tech unicorns. And when the crypto world started being built in earnest, Argentines were already inside. OpenZeppelin, Decentraland, POAP, Kleros, Lemon and Ripio have Argentine founders, and there are Argentines on teams like Optimism, Aztec and the Ethereum Foundation.
Then, the necessity. Nobody in Argentina adopted crypto as a fashion. Inflation (211% in 2023, the highest in more than three decades), currency controls and volatility pushed millions to look for another way to save and transact, and they found one. That is the difference with almost every other market in the world: here, adoption is real, daily and massive. The crisis trained us.
And in recent years, the piece that had always been missing appeared: an environment willing to keep pace. The public sector is listening and responding to the needs of those who build, the regulatory framework is moving forward, and the world is looking this way again.
Proven talent, real needs, public institutions willing to walk alongside. Each of those conditions took decades to build. The convergence of all three is happening now.
The countries that seized a moment like this built the environment so the opportunity would not slip away. That is what Crecimiento exists for. And why the bet is technology is what Why Tech is about.