The city of Buenos Aires will soon officially support the new Ethereum (ETH) network. The capital of Argentina has indeed decided to deploy validation nodes for the blockchain by next year. One more step towards the adoption of the cryptocurrency?
Buenos Aires gets into Ethereum (ETH) validation nodes
Diego Fernández, the head of innovation and digital transformation of Buenos Aires, announced this new project to support the Ethereum blockchain. He was speaking at the ETHLatam conference, which took place last week in Buenos Aires.
Speaking to our CoinDesk colleagues, Fernández confirmed that this is an initiative of exploration and regulation. The holding of Ethereum validation nodes by the city of Buenos Aires will allow for the development of suitable regulation, and the exploration of the technology. To this end, the initiative will take place within the city’s regulatory sandbox, which had been launched in 2021.
The government of Buenos Aires will rely on actors from the private sector to maintain these validation nodes. It is not yet known how large the project will be exactly, but it will rely on a data center held by the city government.
Buenos Aires and Argentina show interest in crypto-currencies
The capital of Argentina has repeatedly shown its interest in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector. Diego Fernández had already confirmed the launch of a decentralized digital identity platform, TangoID, which will be based on StarkNet.
Last April, it was the city’s mayor, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who announced that Buenos Aires residents would now be able to pay their taxes using cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, this trend is being seen nationwide. In 2021, President Alberto Fernández questioned the adoption of Bitcoin (BTC). It must be said that the country is facing high inflation, and a severe economic crisis. In response, many residents have begun to use cryptocurrency – and stablecoins in particular – as a way to protect themselves from it. So this latest initiative from Buenos Aires is part of a larger picture.