Bitcoin price hits all-time highs across Argentina, Nigeria and Turkey

The new all-time highs come despite Bitcoin still being down over 50% against its price peak of $69,000 against the U.S. dollar.

The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has notched new all-time highs against some of the world’s most inflationary fiat currencies.

Across 30 hours over Oct. 23 to 24, the cost of buying one Bitcoin has reached all time-highs when using the Argentine peso (ARS), Nigerian naira (NGN), Turkish lira (TRY), Laotian kip (LAK) and the Egyptian pound (EGT).

#Bitcoin just hit an all-time high in Argentina, Turkey and Nigeria. pic.twitter.com/sKRNUaBMX8
— Miles Deutscher (@milesdeutscher) October 26, 2023

However, it should be noted that the result is due to the ongoing devaluation of the currencies, exacerbated by Bitcoin’s recent 16% price increase.

NGN and TRY fell to their lowest points against the U.S. dollar on Oct. 24 and Oct.25, while ARS is only 0.85% off its all-time low (against the U.S. dollar).

According to the International Monetary Fund, the Venezuelan bolivar currently has the highest annual inflation rate at 360%, followed by Zimbabwean dollar (314%), Sudanese pound (256%) and ARS (122%).

The Turkish lira and Nigerian naira came in sixth and 15th with annual inflation rates of 51% and 25% respectively, IMF’s data shows.

*Heat map of countries in the world with corresponding annual inflation rates. Source: IMF*

Crypto observers have long seen digital assets, such as Bitcoin and stablecoins, as a hedge against rocketing inflation, the recent figures could bolster that narrative.

Nigeria, Turkey and Argentina boast the 2nd, 12th and 15th highest rates of cryptocurrency adoption in the world, according to a Sept. 12 report by Chainalysis.

With inflation at 99% in #Argentina, it’s 99% likely that the citizens of that beautiful country would benefit from #Bitcoin.
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) February 15, 2023

However, the governments of these countries haven't always seen eye-to-eye with the cryptocurrency industry.

Nigeria is finally becoming more welcoming to cryptocurrencies after its central bank banned local banks from providing services to cryptocurrency exchanges in Feb. 2021.

Progress was made in December 2022 when Nigeria announced its intention to pass a bill recognizing cryptocurrencies as “capital for investment” — citing the need to keep up with “global practices” as one of the main reasons behind its change in stance.

And while Turkey is home to some of the most crypto-curious people, its central bank banned cryptocurrency payments for goods and services in April 2021. It has also working on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to digitalize the Turkish lira over the last few years.

#Bitcoin fixes this
I'm back in my beautiful country, Turkey, after 6 months. Shocked to witness the same goods costing 3–4 times more already. Rents, food, public transport, and more costs skyrocket regularly. High inflation's devastation is real and alarming. pic.twitter.com/X4N4Axuh1n
— Gülben Gözü (@gulbengozu) August 28, 2023

Meanwhile, Argentina’s inflation crisis could be influenced by the outcome of its presidential election in November, with presidential candidate Javier Milei set to face competitor Sergi Massa in a final run-off vote on Nov. 19.

Massa, who currently serves as the country’s minister of economy, wants Argentina to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) “as soon as possible” as a means to “solve” the country’s long-lasting inflation crisis.

Argentina's present provides a glimpse into America's future, where the central bank raised interest rates 15 percentage points to 133% on Oct. 12. But with #inflation running at 138% and budget deficits and debt rising, the rate hikes will have no effect on reducing inflation.
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) October 26, 2023

He has also voiced an intention to keep the U.S. dollar away from Argentinians, explaining that Argentinians should instead be “patriots” and defend the Argentine Peso.

Milei on the other hand, wants the U.S dollar to be adopted in addition to abolishing Argentina’s central bank.

Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom

Bizarre 0K Elon Musk crypto statue marketing stunt falls flat

Coin Telegraph

Elon Musk has not made any public comments regarding a bizarre $600,000 monument of him as a goat, which was delivered to the Tesla headquarters on the weekend.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has seemingly given the cold shoulder to a $600,000 monument of him in goat form — which was created as part of a bizarre crypto marketing stunt.

Delivered to Tesla’s Austin headquarters on Nov. 26, the 30-foot, 12,000-pound metal statue of Elon Musk was part of a publicity stunt by the co-founders of the memecoin Elon Goat Token (EGT).

The statue features the head of Elon Musk on the body of a goat that is riding a rocket. The statue also sees Musk wearing a dog collar with a Dogecoin (DOGE) token attached.

We’re very proud of our accomplishments and commitment to #EGT

We’ve always had long term vision for $EGT and will continue to build the brand and utility.

We feel our hard work can lead to Elon claiming #ElonGOAT and we will work towards this goal! Maybe have some fun too! pic.twitter.com/Rk2Gdn5PpE
— Elon Goat Token (@ElonGoatToken) November 27, 2022

According to the EGT whitepaper, the whole project was engineered to be roadworthy and fastened to a 50-foot semi-trailer for transportation. The conceptual design was drawn and rendered in Los Angeles.

The founders of EGT, who are self-described "Elon Superfans," said in the project description on their website they were trying to do "something no other Crypto project has dared to do" to gain recognition and legitimacy for their project with an acknowledgment from Musk.

Unfortunately for EGT however, the $600,000 monument has failed to gain any public acknowledgment from Musk himself, at least on Twitter.

Despite this, it still got plenty of mainstream media coverage, including from the likes of The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider and The Washington Post.

Plenty of Musk-themed tokens

There isn't much information about EGT and its purpose other than it was launched in Jan. 2022 on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), and has been criticized for its Musk-centric marketing plan and lack of utility featured upon launch, according to its own whitepaper.

The token is also one of many Elon Musk-themed tokens attempting to exploit the entrepreneur's fame to market its token. Other Musk-themed tokens include Dogelon Mars (ELON) and spaceTwitterDoge and elonDogeTwit.

As of the time of writing, EGT has 18,400 followers on Twitter, while Coingecko and Coinmarketcap both list EGT, but neither has data surrounding its market cap. Its price appeared to have spiked momentarily before dipping to month lows after the delivery of the statue.

According to its whitepaper, EGT claims to now be working on having real utility in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, having migrated smart contracts from BSC to the Ethereum blockchain.

Over-the-top publicity stunts have been a popular method for crypto projects over the years.

In 2018 Ukrainian social network ASKfm launched an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) by leaving a wallet with 500,000 tokens at the top of Mount Everest, the highest mountain above sea level in the world.

At the time, ASKfm calculated the tokens in the wallet at $50,000, a sum calculated by an estimate of their value once the pre-sale and ICO launch.

Another stunt in 2018 saw the owner of the Epoch Cryptocurrency website Wong Ching-kit drop stacks of cash off a roof in Sham Shui Po, Hong Kong to promote a competition where participants could allegedly win large cash prizes.

Most recently, Rahul Advani, APAC Policy Director of Ripple argued that crypto will need to move away from “hype cycles” and towards “building real utility.”

He explained that the fall of FTX will prompt regulators and governments to scrutinize crypto regulations much more closely.

EGT