[mvindahl]

If you need to cross a border to fetch your hard currency (or equivalent amount of goods) then what is the value add of using crypto compared to, say, opening a bank account in Montevideo and making a bank transfer?

[kragen]

They have dollar-bill-sniffing dogs on the ferryboat to Montevideo, so being able to cross any border rather than one specific border is a pretty big win. But actually, lots of Venezuelan refugees right here in Argentina buy Bitcoin to send to their families back in Venezuela, or the families of other Venezuelan refugees who pay them, and all the black-market currency changers are trying to get into Bitcoin now. A lot of them are still confused about the difference between Bitcoin, Tether, and Binance, though.

[notch656a]

I'm still kind of baffled here why Montevideo was brought up (not by you but above) on a thread regarding Paraguay. Montevideo is in Uruguay. The border between Paraguay and Argentina was used specifically because it is so porous and doesn't work well for sniffing dogs. Getting to Uruguay on the other hand would require a ferry or boat, or a swim. If I'm not mistaken.

[notch656a]

The presumption absolutely no one will trade you crypto in your own country and you can't just mail out or in cash somehow seems like a pretty steep one (particularly in Argentina where black market trade of USD and all array of other stuff is rampant); but you must surely see the different between having your cash stored in a private wallet vs a bank account with a country that quite likely has tax and other legal treaties with your own.

I can't imagine it would be a warm feeling for someone with tax liabilities in Argentina to have a white-market bank account in a friendly country nearby.

[kragen]

Also my girlfriend points out that possibly there's less financial surveillance in Paraguay, and if you travel to Uruguay everything is more expensive, whereas Paraguay is poor so everything is cheap. But still AFAIK nobody here banks in Paraguay because you get robbed there.