Argentina’s Javier Milei, who is supportive of Bitcoin (BTC), has emerged victorious in the country’s presidential run-off election on November 19, defeating his opponent Sergio Massa.
With nearly 99% of the votes counted, Milei secured over 55% of the votes, leading by almost 3 million votes according to data from Bloomberg.
After more than 90% of the votes were counted, Massa, the country’s economy minister, reached out to Milei to congratulate him on the win. Milei is set to assume office on December 10.
Argentina has been grappling with a longstanding inflation crisis, with the national currency, the Argentine peso, experiencing an inflation rate of over 140% in the past 12 months.
Milei has been vocal in criticizing the country’s central bank, labeling it as a scam and a “mechanism used by politicians to unfairly burden citizens with inflationary taxes.”
He sees Bitcoin as a movement toward “restoring the control of money to its original creators, the private sector.”
Related: Bitcoin price reaches record highs in Argentina, Nigeria, and Turkey
However, Milei has not indicated any plans to designate Bitcoin as legal tender in the country.
Massa’s stance on money, banking, and the cryptocurrency industry seems to be starkly different from Milei’s.
In October, he pledged to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) if elected in order to “address” Argentina’s persistent inflation crisis.
Massa emerged as the winner in the initial round of Argentina’s presidential election in October. However, his victory was not sufficient to secure the presidency outright, leading to the final run-off vote.
Prior to that, Milei emerged victorious in Argentina’s primary election in August, competing against Massa and other candidates.
Image Source: Facundo Florit @ Shutterstock
