Argentina's Regulatory Sandbox for Crypto & Startups

Transcript

hello everyone my name is MIL Santa Maria that's actually Maria Santa Maria mil is EAS here for everyone I am a lawyer I do web three Consulting and also worked for a fund backing Singapore and as well in Portugal called August one and my working group has a very complicated task of both working with the as part of the sandbox in monotis and the potential creation of other a new and National level sandbox special economic zone or taxfree Zone but beyond that and let's see there you go my grandma in a kind of personal note she used to be a drama and public speaker professor and she said whenever you do a talk talk about what you're going to talk about talk about what you're right now talking about and talk about about what you just talked about so my

intention is to show you guys how with sandbox both in a b ba and LF point of view and later on road map Argentina national level point of view is aligned with Christo's objectives how it is on a short-term basis M and longterm basis and finally what we're trying to build and what we want to propose later on in August in LF so considering the short-term objectives August is right around the uh the corner and a left popup city is in the middle of the application of the woida sandbox inside of the woida law 6491 what we're trying to do with this is to set up precedence as an example this specific sandbox that were in the

middle of the application already had a very specific project in the IND Industrial Park enabling people to go back and forth with AI power different public transportation but later on what we're going to focus especially is according to the medium and long-term objectives of Cento how we're trying to show that on the last point the regulatory framework can help to the 20 year stability for different startup and projects but starting small to later on go big so short-term objectives and where are we at and why is this important what is this specific sandbox that nobody's really talking about because sandboxes are not really a big thing in Argentina and this is why this is a good moment a good window to start applying and set

legal precedence for whatever we're enabling now for web three projects we're talking about AI blockchain iot NFC any of this to happen and be able to be replicated for over two to three years after the government considers of public interest so we're in the middle of this process because we want to show to everyone there are good practices in Argentina and goo web 3 projects are already thriving and doing pretty well after this presentation there are a couple of guests showing their own startups and how they've been able to Surf around the regulatory framework in Argentina which is tricky but still surfable you can still get barreled so it's still something that we can show but that we're aiming to get better that's why we're all together right

now so how do we tackle that third objective we were talking about how do we give this startups the ones that are coming the ones are already there the 20e stability that they deserve so Argentina can do better not only for web three related people but for everyone and for this our working group back in Argentina and pretty much everywhere has divided their efforts in different things and started like what do we have right now when it comes to the reg the regulatory framework what works what doesn't work what are the pain points what are the legal blockers that we have and how do we address them and the specific Regulators related to those legal problems right because there's also the good we got the sandbox law that I just mentioned

Economo we got RI we got the technological District of Buenos Iris and we even have already special economic zones down North and down south and up north as well this means that there is more to do than we actually think so if we start with the good things we also have to tell The Good the Bad and the Ugly the ugly we have already experienced that for the past decades the bad okay what are our pain points when we identify our pain points where we talk about the legal complexities the bureaucratic hardles the economic volatility the lack of predictability on any project that we want to be able to have develop we need to think who is to blame or what are the specific regulations that we can pain

that pinpoint and the different Regulators on top of them we can talk about the cnv which is the Argentina C for reference we can talk about the VC which is the central bank we can talk about weef we can talk about many of them but once we identify the good and what we want to keep what identify the bad and what needs to be changed we can start thinking okay what do we build from this space that we want to keep and that we want to change and we have different options we can talk about we're considering a national level sandbox we're considering a special economic zone because there have been others that have worked and others that haven't worked so much and then also the the consideration of a taxfree zone right they have different characteristics they have different ways of implementations and they require

different kind of resources if we consider the sandbox it's experimental flexibility involment which is controlled for different projects to work with Regulators Regulators to learn and from them set up legal precedent that can help us and other projects as well because truth is in Argentina we're lacking legal Clarity on several Concepts it's just not just what is a security token or pirate offering that's just a small part of it so this is a good way to also set up precedence without having to wait years of just debate on one specific crypto law as an example or it could be a special economic zone we could also T um tackle the tax incentives or the tax pains that projects have nowadays or a taxfree Zone but it could be a little bit too

specific although there's also the consideration of combining them in a different road map for this during the past few months we've been speaking with people from all over the world with legal experts tax uh taxfree Zone experts special economic zone experts from everywhere we can name Christian banur Nicholas singer we can name renowned boy um B Haywood and all of them have given us different insights that we're trying to also address as an example we're gonna or we're trying to identify those Target industries that can benefit it with our three startups and companies because in the end we're talking about different types of technologies that can be applied to any kind of industry and in Argentina we know Agra business is important tourism is important education is fundamental so

to try to find or create a new product or project we can call it a special economics owner a Sandbox that through the use of these Technologies the rest of the country can also get better we're also trying to understand what is good to take from the Ric six models like in prospera in Honduras what is being done in Brazil the D the DLT power regime that's Fu in Europe and what works and what doesn't work and what we want to replicate and the same kind of analysis on what we already have in Argentina what did not work on okay this could be a good way Beyond this there's also the possibility and the consideration of structuring a road map therefore start a little bit smaller like a Sandbox who later on with the right kind of political involvement consider a potential creation of a special economic

zone that could last way longer than just two or three years as a regular sandlock because this is a long game we're not just talking about making an effort right now and then just sit down and be comfortable even Prosper as a good example took a little bit of time for it to get together it got for them to become a group of people of Enthusiast the community then a legal project to come out change the Constitution at the beginning when you think about a big project you get a little a little bit overwhelmed and intimidated but in the end it's baby steps already this conversation is a huge step even if it just feels like a tiny one right day by day and then and again we're considering collaboration coordination and cooperation and why is this because we don't want to do this alone and if we ever say that we did

this on our own we're actually lying there's so many argentinians and foreigners as well that are passionate about making a better world to work with a purpose and in Argentina we're already speaking with different organizations like the ftech ch that's already working on a sandook to potentially work together we're speaking with the CNB which again is the Argentina sec to actually collaborate in a potential multi- agency sandbox like we're showing over here to Target specific theme points that we keep here in startups complain they were mentioned by Juan by Dy we're talking about funding we're talking about credit we're talking about taxes some of them just want unch in governance it's fair but in the end why not try to tackle something that ends up being holistic for all of them so we have our part of our group talking with

experts with different stakeholders with part of the government as well to understand okay this is what we have and what we want to keep these are the pain points on the blockers how to address them and then when it comes to sbok special economics zone or taxfree Zone from a from abroad this is what we want to replicate from Argentina this is what we want to keep what we don't want to replicate and this is the easiest fastest less resource consuming path that we can take so by the month of August we can present this to all of you and then start stage three for us which is implementation and at the same time it's important to mention that we are technologically agnostic it's a little bit like religional n we just want everyone to to do better from an economic personal every kind of

perspective and not just thinking about web 3 web 2.5 Web Two just in general it would be selfish if it wasn't the case and we are also politically neutral which is important to mention and now looking at that ball we were having an ass I think it's the 10th time in this conversation that we said aad or barbecue last night and we were mentioning one specific case that happened two years ago who remembers the World Cup 2022 I think that more than three people remembers it and especially argentinians but the point is that I I made made a small reflection on how before we actually won maybe at the beginning after we lost about with Saudi Arabia we were not expecting but people or my foreign friends uh were saying I find it

so funny that the ministry of economy said that if you guys win the World Cup then inflation is going to be fixed or something similar to this and they would laugh about it but they didn't understand that it was the first time in a very long time especially after the the break or like we call it that argentinians were all in the same team no matter their religion their socio economic background what would be their political beliefs that they really wanted Argentina to do better just because they were Argentinian but because they really had faith and the illusion that it could happen and you also had the rest of the world a big part of the world that they were rooting for us and then I think it was James that made it joke are you talking about C Meo and actually it might slightly

apply we just want to have our people do better by doing better with a big part of the world rooting for us and being bullish for us with the difference that this time we're not playing against the French hopefully they're with us in this mon which will be something actually good of course and my know you're part of our team you know that the French are good for us great we're working together coordination collaboration cooperation which is good so as my grandma told me what did I just talk about I just talked about that we're doing the analysis and what is the existing legal frame landscape in Argentina that you can already buil from We're analyzing the pain points or the blockers that need to be changed and as well the potential creation of any of these three as as a Sandbox special economic zone a taxfree

zone so this one can be addressed over there and this can be kept to propose an ex structure that in the words of Bob Haywood enables productivity profitability and as well predictability for that growth that can make all of us feel both safe and excited on that case everyone is welcome to build and make part of it from the people that just want maybe Deep dive into work and meet new people and new projects that are not Argentinian and to those Argentinian that really want to make a difference and build their own projects or even to test out a different kind of reality that we can still make so where we're at we're applying Alf in the middle in the middle of the application of a left inside of the sandbox of wois and during the month of August we're going to be in the middle

of the test protocol so nothing can be on fire no I'm just a job we still have insurance we just signed it uh we're in the middle of stakeholder negotiation as well because in the end we is a very cliche thing to say but in the end if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far you go together so we're speaking with CNB BC which is the central bank and as well the fintech chamber as I mentioned and uh this proposal of this package and how it's going to look like our efforts are targeting for the third week of August to come with a package and from the package package start with the implementation phase um if there's any comment anything you guys would like to say if not I'm going to be here for the rest of the week and yeah happy to be

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