Anyone use crypto hardware wallets in Argentina?

[Fiscal]

Lmao...Fiscal are you getting a bit cranky in Miami?

No one in their right mind would carry around a hardware wallet because they want to. Unless of course you want to lose it in a boating accident.

LOL no I think my good natured irony isn't coming out over text

 

[Sequoia1321]

Do people in Argentina use crypto alot?

 

[Fiscal]

I thought I read something about Mercado Libre trying to start to use it.

 

[sts7049]

I haven't noticed it widely in use. I suspect people are more interested in a way to hedge against inflation since dollars are restricted

 

[Brian_is_here]

Hardware wallets are more like cold storage bank vaults than actual wallets you use for walking around money. They are meant to be hard to get to and hard to steal from. Hence they're not as accommodating.

At any rate, the transaction fees of moving bitcoin around for casual use like this from a hardware wallet is oppressive. You buy a coke for ... well whatever coke is costing nowadays and the cost of the transaction is probably 10x the price of the coke.

What most people recommend is using Lightning Network which has dramatically lower transaction fees, but i don't think any of the major hardware wallets support that. Most people use their phones for such activities since you do need an active internet connection to get the transaction rolling.

 

[Brian_is_here]

I'm really curious if Argentina could move to using crypto currency since its has less of an issue with custodianship. if you have a hardware wallet and your keys are safe, your house could burn down and you won't be out of your cash hoard. Most people in Argentina learned their lesson the first time that keeping USD in the bank is too risky because the government will just rob you later.

 

[Fiscal]

Is there a software wallet or exchange that works in Argentina? Coinbase doesn't let me use it from Argentina and others like Robinhood don't actually provide a wallet and only let me store the currency. I would like to (for fun) play around with small amounts of crypto when I go back to Argentina.

 

[lunar]

Is there a software wallet or exchange that works in Argentina?

Software wallets are universal. They allow you to manage your keys and your bitcoins, no matter what country you are in.
Electrum is a reasonable choice for a desktop wallet.

As to exchanges that work with Argentina, there are many: ripio, localbitcoins, bitex.la, satoshitango, cryptomkt.com, buenbit, decrypto.com.ar etc.
Localbitcoins is more like a person-to-person exchange board. I believe the rest of them ask you to transfer money from your arg bank account to buy bitcoins. Foreign exchanges that accept debit or credit cards for payment do not work with Argentinean plastic, because of the mess with PAIS/solidarity taxes.

 

[Fiscal]

What are the some of the most legit safest software wallets for your phone? Mercado Pago doesn't have an option to pay via BTC or receive BTC? I want to encourage people I know in Argentina to download something user friendly like whatever is the equivalent of Coinbase and then send around crypto.

 

[Brian_is_here]

I think you need to break the concept of a wallet. The wallet is a piece of hardware (or software) that protects your private key to your cryptocurrency address.

A hardware wallet is more secure because its designed in such a way that your private key only exists on the hw wallet. Whoever wants send crypto from that wallet has to have physical possession of the wallet to send it.
A software wallet is less secure but more useful in that it can be installed on your cell phone, but then again, your phone is more of a risk because it can be hacked, stolen, or broken.

the typical path for people to "buying and selling" crypto currency is to find an exchange that they can transfer USD or ARS or what have you to. Exchanges are like... Coinbase, Binance, Ripio, etc. Once bought you can then transfer the crypto to "cold storage" which is usually your private wallet. this wallet could be a software wallet or a hardware wallet. From there you "hodl" the coins until they appreciate in value until you want to sell them. In which case you transfer back to an exchange, sell, and then transfer the proceeds in USD or ARS back to your bank account.