Uruguay, like all South American nations, is taking important steps in terms of crypto assets; this year has already been the focus of important news in the region, such as the installation of cryptocurrency ATMs in its territory and pronouncements of its Central Bank regarding the treatment that digital assets should receive.
In this sense, already after advancing in the first half of the year, the Cointelegraph en Español team has talked to Adolfo Varela, director and founder of inBierto, an Uruguayan technology company in the cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology sector, to know in detail the current state of the crypto ecosystem in Uruguay and his opinions on various issues that have sounded the last few months in the sector.
CRYPTO NEWS IN URUGUAY
First, Varela was asked about the status of crypto regulation in Uruguay, knowing that at the beginning of the year, the Central Bank published the document “Conceptual framework for the regulatory treatment of Virtual Assets in Uruguay”, and no more has been known about it.
On the other hand, Varela replied that recently, the Central Bank of Uruguay finished preparing its study and regulatory proposal, which it had already submitted to the Ministry of Economy, hinting a clear position of the entity regarding crypto assets in Uruguay will be known very soon.
“It is understood that the Executive Power will send it to the National Parliament to study it together with the projects presented by Senators Sartori and Sanguinetti”, he commented.
In this sense, Varela also talked about the adoption and behavior of the use of ATMs for cryptocurrencies in the Uruguayan citizen, saying that day by day, the interest to use and install ATMs throughout the country is increasing, being this the reason why Inbierto is now working on a round of capitalization to install ATMs “throughout the national territory”.
Likewise, Varela was asked, as a representative of a crypto technology software company, what his opinion was regarding the development or growth of crypto or web3 software in Uruguay, and he mentioned the following:
“The Uruguayan software industry represents US$1.5 billion per year composed of all the development areas. We see a potential increase in that figure due to the interest in developing web3 and blockchain products.”
He also mentioned pointing to growth, that there are also project proposals and alliances with other crypto and non-crypto companies interested in getting involved in the sector.
“We punctually have had an increase in inquiries and budgets for project development and alliances with traditional companies looking to get involved in some way or another to the crypto world,” he said.
“We also have excellent relationships with top-tier crypto companies,” Varela added.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES AND THE METAVERSE
Regarding the role he believes cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology can play in the metaverse, he said he is still not very clear about the future of what the metaverse will be because, in his opinion, the functionality that cryptocurrencies will have will depend a lot on this; however, he said he understands that the use of blockchain will be the same as the one we give to real life. “Financial, governance uses, and more,” he said.
THE DOMINANCE OF CBDCS
As for CBDCs, the InBierto Director described them as imminent in many countries as the only possible way out for states that intend to exercise better control over the use of money.
“For the time being, I prefer Tether”, said Valera, who also said that Uruguay was the first country to experiment with something similar to CBDC with the e-Peso.
“I understand that Senator Sartori made a consultation and raised the possibility of using CBDC in Uruguay. I don’t know of any formal intention on the part of the Central Bank to implement at the moment,” he said.
ON DEFI HACKS
Regarding the DeFi sector, Varela took the opportunity to point out the hacks suffered by several protocols and bridges during the last months. For him, DeFi is part of the ongoing revolution, and their virtues are also their disadvantages.
“They are exposed to many malicious people looking to take advantage of vulnerabilities. I think so many attacks and hacking affect the whole crypto ecosystem. People who understand less but are attentive to news may think that the whole ecosystem is vulnerable when, in fact, it is not,” he commented.
“I think attacks on DeFi will decrease as time progresses, no doubt. Although the evolution of technology goes hand in hand with the evolution of knowledge of those seeking to vulnerate, I understand that like anything new, as time progresses, they will improve and become more secure,” he pointed out.
THE CURRENT SITUATION OF THE CRYPTOCURRENCY MARKET
Finally, Adolfo Varela also shared his opinion on the current state of the crypto market and the price of Bitcoin, which he described as being very hit by the whole international situation and projects that failed during the last few months.
“We are witnessing a fight between funds seeking to affect the crypto market. While Bitcoin was not born to be priced in dollars, the reality indicates otherwise. I understand that it is cheap and with a chance to generate some more buying opportunity before resuming the bull cycle,” said Varela, also anticipated to express that each market fall serves to cleanse itself of bad projects and gain sanity for its future.
“To see a bull market again, we must wait for investors to recover from the blows given during the first half of this year. There were huge movements of a lot of capital when the sharp falls triggered what happened to Terra, Celsius, 3Arrows, and others. Regardless of the health of these projects, it seems to me that there were vast movements beyond the power of the average number of holders,” he concluded.
With information from Coin Telegraph