Can Bitcoin Save Argentina?

Over the past 30 years, Argentina has tried a diverse toolkit of mainstream economic solutions to its persistent drift into chaos, and each has failed.

On the plus side, in addition to its great food, wine and culture, we made some of the best, most loving, loyal friends we've ever made in our adult lives in Argentina.

Even after we'd made the decision to go, Argentina's dysfunction almost destroyed us financially, when we struggled to get our life savings out of the country - as readers of Paul Vigna's and my first book, The Age of Cryptocurrency, will know.

Early bitcoin thought leaders such as Wences Casares and Andreas Antonopoulos were already articulating how cryptocurrencies would appeal to people in places with failed economic systems.

Argentina has become a hotbed of crypto development.

Siri's heading back to his native Argentina later this month with a proposal for Luis Caputo, the President of Argentina's Central Bank.

His idea, announced in a tweet last month, is that the central bank place up to one percent of its national reserves in bitcoin.

Its fatal flaw - the misalignment of Argentina's and the United States' economic interests - was exposed when the U.S. Federal Reserve began aggressively hiking interest rates at the worst possible time for Argentina's then-slowing economy.

As modest as it, a nod toward bitcoin of this kind could be meaningful for the country, signaling support for financial innovation and for decentralized models that reinforce public confidence.

While the downside of price volatility is limited by the one-percent cap, the upside financial boost could be significant if, as Siri expects, bitcoin rallies when foreign governments start abandoning dollars in the midst of a mounting global trade war.