Who Is This Guy and How Did He Just Add $22B to Bitcoin’s Price?

TL;DR

• Argentina's new president loves Bitcoin, which pushed BTC's price up 3%, adding ~$22B worth of value to its market cap in 24hrs.

• While 3% doesn't sound like much, a 3% move in Bitcoin means ~$22B of new value (which is roughly the entire ​market cap​ of ​Solana​).

Full Story

See that guy pictured above? Is he:

A) The bass player in your friend's uncle's band, who do mostly Bon Jovi covers, and are still holding on to the hope that they'll one day "make it"...

Or

B) A middle school guidance counsellor who rides a motorbike and wears the same leather jacker each day (all in an attempt to be seen as 'the cool teacher')?

If you answered A or B, you're wrong. The correct answer was:

C) The new president of Argentina (seriously).

And he has some pretty wild ideas regarding central banks and the Argentine peso...specifically, he wants to get rid of both and dollarize the economy.

Translation: he wants to get rid of central banking in Argentina, and move the local economy from using Argentine pesos, to US dollars.

Wondering what this has to do with crypto?

Well, if you've spent enough time in the space, you'll know that this sort of anti-central bank rhetoric typically goes hand in hand with a love for Bitcoin.

And ​Javier Milei​ (that's his name btw) is no different.

He hasn't outright said that he wants to make Bitcoin legal tender in the country, but it wouldn't be shocking if that showed up in future plans.

As a result: Bitcoin jumped 3% in a 24hr period.

Which doesn't sound like much, but a 3% move in Bitcoin means ~$22B of new value (which is roughly the entire ​market cap​ of ​Solana​).

Ok, but why such extreme measures?

Well, the Argentine peso's buying power has been cut in half over the past year due to inflation...and the entire country's GDP has barely doubled over the past 100 years.

Which is all to say:

Things (Argentina's economy/financial system) haven't been great → they're now getting worse → given all of that, the voting population is opting for what would have previously been considered an 'extreme' economic solution.

But hey, if our savings lost half their buying power in 12 months, maybe we'd be open to cutting our losses and embracing a foreign currency.

Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hopefully, we never have to find out.