ARGENTINA’S CENTRAL BANK KEEPS ITS 2022 BAN ON BANK CRYPTO SERVICES — SUPERINTENDENT CURUTCHET CITES “FRAGILITY” — HE SEES AN OPENING ONLY IN A SECOND MILEI TERM

Juan Curutchet, who supervises banks at Argentina’s central bank, said banks will not be offering crypto any time soon, La Nación reported on October 7, 2026, from the Pulso 2026 payments event. Per the paper, nothing changes in 2026 or 2027, and he sees it as possible in a second Milei term. His reason, in his words: “Hoy tenemos un nivel de fragilidad que no nos permite avanzar tanto.” In English: today we have a level of fragility that does not let us move that far.

The rule is Comunicación “A” 7506, dated May 5, 2022. Banks “no pueden realizar ni facilitar” operations with digital assets, crypto included, that a national regulator or the central bank has not authorized. That means they can neither do it nor help clients do it. Per La Nación, it landed less than 48 hours after Banco Galicia and Brubank announced buying, selling and holding crypto for clients.

Read the reason he gave. Fragile is the word for a currency people want to leave and for banks that hold that currency. A bank app that swaps pesos for bitcoin in one tap is a door out. The central bank keeps the door shut and calls it caution. That is the state protecting its money from its savers, said plainly.

The ban does not stop Argentines from holding bitcoin. It stops the banks from holding it for them. That leaves bitcoin outside the banking system, which is where a holder who keeps the keys wanted it anyway. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $83,682.