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Argentina

June 4, 2026

8 min read

Last Updated: June 2026

Legal. Crypto mining is not specifically prohibited or restricted at the federal level. There is no dedicated mining licensing regime; mining itself is treated as a lawful commercial activity. Operators are subject to general corporate, tax, and (for any virtual-asset service activity) the CNV's PSAV/VASP registration regime — see Section 2. No federal ban, moratorium, or hashrate cap exists (contrast Kazakhstan's caps or China's 2021 ban).

2. Regulatory Framework

Law 27,739 (March 2024): Amended Argentina's AML law (Law 25,246) and created the VASP framework, designating the Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV) as the registration and supervisory authority for Proveedores de Servicios de Activos Virtuales (PSAV / Virtual Asset Service Providers). This regime targets exchange, transfer, custody, and related virtual-asset services — it does not, by its terms, regulate mining as such, but a miner that also operates as a VASP (e.g., selling mined coins as an exchange service, custody) can fall within scope.

CNV Resolución General N° 1058/2025 (published Boletín Oficial 14 March 2025): Implementing regulation for the PSAV regime. Sets minimum net-capital requirements (approximately USD 35,000–150,000 depending on service category), cybersecurity protocols, annual system audits, client-asset segregation, an annual supervision fee (≈ USD 10,000 for legal entities), a Regulatory Compliance and Internal Control Officer, and AML/CFT obligations. The registration exemption for activity below 35,000 UVA monthly volume applies only to natural persons.

Registration thresholds and deadlines:

  • Activity exemption: natural persons below 35,000 UVA monthly volume only
  • Individuals: before July 1, 2025
  • Argentine legal entities: before August 1, 2025
  • Foreign legal entities: before September 1, 2025
  • Transitional compliance for the substantive PSAV obligations ran through end-2025.

3. Energy & Environmental Framework

Electricity-market reform (Decretos 450/2025, 451/2025, 452/2025, July 2025): The Milei administration's decrees restructure the wholesale electricity and gas markets — moving toward marginal-cost pricing, deregulating generation and commercialization, allowing large consumers to choose suppliers and contract via bilateral Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), and reducing CAMMESA's role from central buyer to technical dispatch/settlement functions. Decreto 452/2025 creates a unified regulator, the Ente Nacional Regulador del Gas y la Electricidad (ENRGE), replacing ENRE and ENARGAS. A 24-month transition period applies.

Resolución 400/2025 (Secretaría de Energía, published 21 October 2025; in force 1 November 2025): Approves the "Rules for the Normalization of the Wholesale Electricity Market (MEM)," operationalizing the move away from the state subsidy model and toward bilateral contracting.

These reforms are directly relevant to mining: dollar-denominated bilateral PPAs between generators and large industrial consumers create a framework under which mining operations can contract power directly, bypassing the traditional regulated-distribution channel. There is no mining-specific energy tariff, curtailment regime, or PoW energy-disclosure mandate at the federal level (contrast EU MiCA's PoW disclosure obligations).

Flared / stranded gas: Argentina's Vaca Muerta shale formation has driven flared-gas mining pilots. YPF Luz (subsidiary of state-controlled YPF) operates a flared-gas Bitcoin-mining pilot in the Vaca Muerta region, converting associated gas that would otherwise be flared into electricity for mining. Private operators (e.g., Unblock Computos, the Argentine subsidiary of Unblock Global) have also pursued Vaca Muerta flared-gas mining.

4. Mining Economics & Industry Data

  • Industrial electricity tariffs: approximately $0.03–0.08/kWh (industry-reported, Hashrate Index, State of Bitcoin Mining in Latin America, April 2026), with durability dependent on macroeconomic stability. Lower-end rates (~$0.03–0.04/kWh) are broadly competitive with
    Paraguay    's hydropower rates; the upper end reflects post-subsidy and macro volatility.
  • Hashrate (industry-reported): Argentina's mining hashrate declined approximately 42% year-over-year as of Q2 2026 to roughly 1 EH/s (industry-reported, Hashrate Index, April 2026). The report attributes the decline largely to a single operator exit — Bitfarms/Keel Infrastructure shutting a ~40 MW site — rather than to a federal restriction or energy constraint. These figures are operator/research-firm estimates, not government statistics; treat as industry-reported.
  • Provincial variation in electricity allocation and subsidies persists; economic instability and periodic energy stress affect enforcement and operating economics.

Methodology caveat: Hashrate and per-country energy-consumption figures are inherently estimated (miners are mobile and often do not self-identify by jurisdiction). The Cambridge CBECI/CCAF country-level hashrate map is the most-cited academic methodology; firm-level figures above are commercial estimates. No official Argentine government hashrate or mining-energy statistic was located — NOT VERIFIED against a primary government source.

5. Taxation

Mining income is not governed by a dedicated mining tax statute; it falls under general Argentine tax rules. Income tax (Impuesto a las Ganancias) applies to mining proceeds as ordinary income/business income, and value-added tax (IVA) and provincial gross-receipts tax (Ingresos Brutos) can apply depending on the activity's characterization and province. The federal personal-assets tax (Bienes Personales) reaches crypto holdings. Argentina's prior money-laundering/tax-amnesty (Régimen de Regularización, 2024) allowed declaration of undisclosed crypto assets. Specific federal guidance dedicated to mining-income characterization was NOT VERIFIED against a primary AFIP/ARCA source and should be treated as general-rule inference rather than mining-specific rule.

6. AML / KYC

AML/CFT obligations under Law 27,739 and CNV RG 1058/2025 attach to VASPs, not to mining as a standalone activity. A miner that only mines and self-custodies is not, by that act alone, a registered obligated subject; a miner that provides exchange/custody/transfer services to third parties falls within the PSAV regime and its UIF (Financial Information Unit) reporting duties.

Recent Developments

Verification Notes

Verification standard version: 2026-06-04.

Corrections made this refresh (Correction Protocol):

  • Electricity tariff range corrected. Previous text stated "~$0.03–0.04/kWh" as the industrial rate. Corrected to "$0.03–0.08/kWh (industry-reported, Hashrate Index, April 2026)" — the older narrow range understated the post-subsidy/upper band. The competitive lower band is preserved with attribution.
  • Regulatory framework expanded with the implementing resolution. Previous version omitted CNV Resolución General 1058/2025 (the implementing regulation for Law 27,739) entirely; added with Boletín Oficial primary citation and its 31 Dec 2025 full-effectiveness milestone.
  • Legal-status nuance added. Clarified that the CNV/PSAV regime regulates virtual-asset services, not mining per se; a pure miner is not automatically a VASP.

Claims verified against primary/official sources:

  • CNV RG 1058/2025 (number, issuer, publication date 14 March 2025, PSAV scope): Boletín Oficial detalleAviso 322539.
  • Law 27,739 (March 2024) creating the VASP framework under CNV: confirmed across CNV/Argentina.gob.ar and multiple law-firm analyses (Beccar Varela).
  • Decretos 450/451/452/2025 and Resolución 400/2025 energy reform: Argentina.gob.ar and Boletín Oficial (Resolución 400/2025, detalleAviso 333149).

Claims labeled industry-reported (not government data):

  • Hashrate (~1 EH/s, −42% YoY, Q2 2026), Bitfarms/Keel ~40 MW shutdown, electricity-tariff band, YPF Luz flared-gas pilot — all from Hashrate Index (April 2026), a commercial research firm. No official Argentine government hashrate/mining-energy statistic was located.

NOT VERIFIED / NO DATA FOUND:

  • Mining-specific federal tax guidance (AFIP/ARCA characterization of mining income) — general-rule inference only; no dedicated primary source located.
  • Official government mining-energy consumption or hashrate figures — none published.
  • Provincial-level mining electricity allocation/subsidy specifics — referenced generically; no single primary provincial instrument verified.

Sources:

Graph view