Argentina Crypto & Digital Asset Regulation

Crypto Licensing

Argentina regulates virtual-asset service provision through a registration perimeter rather than a prudential licensing regime. Under Ley 27.739, the National Securities Commission (CNV) centralizes, as enforcement authority, a registry covering any person or entity that performs virtual-asset exchange, transfer, custody or administration activity in the country. This is a confirmed structural feature of the regime: registration, not a capital-backed licence, is the operative control.

That registration perimeter has just been substituted. CNV General Resolution 1172/2026 replaces the existing Capitulo III/Titulo XIV framework for providers of virtual-asset services (PSAV), raising the minimum-activity threshold that triggers mandatory registration and recasting the monthly activity report registrants must file onto a gross-volume basis, with a trailing twelve-month client count. The change takes effect from 1 November 2026. Its most consequential design feature is that the monthly reporting obligation persists even where a registrant has no operations in a given period, removing dormancy as a route out of ongoing disclosure.

The reported threshold figure, ARS 75,480,300, and the specific recast report format come from secondary legal commentary rather than the CNV's own resolution text, which was not directly retrieved; this portion of the finding is accordingly probable. The underlying registration and enforcement-authority architecture, by contrast, is confirmed from a primary official gazette source. Taken together, the picture is a jurisdiction tightening the gate into its existing registry rather than building a new licensing tier, consistent with a broader pattern of registration-based regimes layering continuous-disclosure obligations onto what had been a largely static sign-up requirement.

Outlook

With the effective date set for 1 November 2026, the near-term task is confirming the CNV's own resolution text to settle the precise threshold figure and the full Anexo I report content, neither of which has yet been independently verified against a primary CNV source. Until that confirmation, the threshold and reporting-format details should be read as probable, while the registration perimeter and the CNV's role as centralizing enforcement authority remain settled features of the regime that this resolution modifies rather than replaces.

Crypto Licensing

Argentina's virtual-asset licensing regime remains registration-based rather than a full licensing or prudential model, administered by the Comisión Nacional de Valores under the framework of Law No. 27,739 amending Law No. 25,246, together with CNV General Resolutions 1058/2025 and, as of this period, 1172/2026. The baseline obligation requires a proveedor de servicios de activos virtuales to register with the CNV once its aggregate monthly activity exceeds UVA 35,000, a threshold applying to Argentine-incorporated legal entities, resident individuals falling within Categories 1 and 2, and foreign providers operating within the country.

General Resolution 1172/2026 tightens this registration perimeter in two specific respects. First, it requires locally constituted PSAV registrants to state their PSAV activity explicitly, in non-generic language, within their corporate-purpose clause, closing a gap in which a generically worded corporate purpose might previously have obscured whether an entity was properly within scope. Second, it confirms that the registration duty applies even to an entity recording no PSAV transactions in a given period, removing any suggestion that dormancy could place a registrant outside its ongoing registration obligations. Secondary legal commentary states the tightened requirements take effect from 1 November 2026, though that date has not been independently verified against the resolution's own commencement provision, and should be treated as probable pending confirmation.

As of 13 October 2026, the CNV's PSAV registry recorded 81 registered entities, all legal entities, with no individual registrants recorded, according to secondary commentary rather than direct verification against the registry itself. This figure gives a sense of the current scale of Argentina's formally registered virtual-asset sector under the registration-only model, though it does not capture unregistered activity that may fall below the UVA 35,000 monthly threshold or outside the registration perimeter altogether.

No change to the underlying registration-threshold architecture itself was identified this period: Argentina has not moved toward a capital-and-governance licensing model, and the tightening introduced by GR 1172/2026 operates within the existing registration-based structure rather than replacing it.

Outlook

Confirmation of the 1 November 2026 effective date against GR 1172/2026's own commencement article is the immediate marker to watch. Beyond that, whether the CNV's registry count grows materially from the 81-entity figure recorded in mid-October 2026, particularly among foreign providers newly captured by the tightened deeming test, will indicate how significant the practical registration impact of this tightening proves to be.

Crypto Licensing

The Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV) remains the sole channel through which virtual-asset service providers may lawfully register and operate in Argentina, and this cycle brings a wholesale replacement of that channel's rulebook. RG 1172/2026 substitutes Chapter III, Title XIV of the CNV Rules in full, effective 16 October 2026, superseding the regime previously established under RG 1058/2025. Registration with the CNV's PSAV Registry continues to be required before operating, grounded in the PSAV definition at article 4 bis of Ley 25.246, as amended by Ley 27.739. The new rulebook carries forward a minimum-activity threshold — ARS 75,480,300, approximately USD 49,167 as of 15 October 2026 — below which the CNV may refuse registration, continuing a feature of the prior RG 1058/2025 regime, though the precise article pinpoint for this threshold within the new text has not been confirmed from primary sources this cycle.

A new standardised monthly reporting obligation, Formulario PSAV_014, becomes mandatory from 1 November 2026 for all registered PSAVs, including those with zero activity in a given month, replacing prior ad hoc reporting practice with a single template covering active clients, gross volume, top-10 traded assets, and custody broken down by asset and network. This represents a material tightening of ongoing compliance obligations rather than a loosening of the registration perimeter, notwithstanding broader pro-crypto political rhetoric in Argentina. The CNV's own gazette text of RG 1172/2026 was not directly retrieved this cycle, leaving the exact statutory wording for several of these provisions, including the mixer-service prohibition discussed under Consumer Protection, unconfirmed at the primary-source level.

Outlook

The operative near-term date is 1 November 2026, when the Formulario PSAV_014 reporting requirement takes effect for all registered PSAVs. Whether the CNV's full-text gazette publication surfaces to confirm the precise threshold and conduct-standard article numbers remains an open item for the next research cycle.

Crypto Licensing

Argentina does not operate a bespoke, single-purpose statutory authorisation formally labelled a crypto license. Instead, Ley 27.739, through its Article 37, requires any person or entity performing one of five regulated virtual-asset activities to register as a Proveedor de Servicios de Activos Virtuales (PSAV) with the Comision Nacional de Valores, a duty in force since 15 March 2024 and implemented in detail by CNV RG 1058/2025. This cycle brings two further resolutions that materially change the texture of that registration duty without altering its statutory base. CNV RG 1150/2026 confirms that Article 37 grants the CNV broad powers of supervision, regulation, inspection, oversight and sanction over PSAVs; the specific fine amounts or turnover-percentage maxima that would attach to those sanction powers were not located in sources reached this cycle, so the practical severity of non-compliance cannot yet be quantified. CNV RG 1139/2026 goes further on the front end of the process, subjecting PSAV registration to a substantive assessment of the applicant's integrity and solvency. Notably, RG 1139/2026 currently carries a transitional exception excluding the idoneity requirement under Section 11(1) of the new regime; the source reviewed this cycle did not establish when or whether that exception will lapse, leaving open whether the full integrity test will eventually apply to all applicants or only to a later cohort.

Read together, these two resolutions indicate that the CNV is moving its PSAV gate from a chiefly procedural filing toward a more substantive gatekeeping function, backed by confirmed sanction authority. The underlying activity-based definition of what counts as a regulated virtual-asset activity, and the identity of the supervisory authority itself, have not changed: the CNV remains the sole registering and supervising body, and Ley 27.739 remains the enabling statute.

Outlook

Two gaps bound on this cycle's findings and should resolve the practical stakes of the tightening described above. First, whether the CNV publishes a specific administrative-fine schedule under its RG 1150/2026 powers, which would convert a confirmed grant of sanction authority into a quantifiable compliance risk for registered PSAVs. Second, whether and when the transitional idoneity exception in RG 1139/2026 lapses, which would determine whether the substantive integrity assessment eventually applies uniformly across the PSAV population or remains confined to a subset of applicants. Both are directly relevant to any entity currently registered, or contemplating registration, as a PSAV in Argentina.

Crypto Licensing

Argentina requires any virtual-asset service provider (PSAV) targeting Argentine residents, or receiving funds from Argentina via any technology, to register in the CNV's PSAV Registry; operating without registration is not lawful. This registration mandate, grounded in Ley 27.739 and given detailed operational content by CNV Resolucion General 1058/2025, is the core of Argentina's crypto-licensing perimeter and is a Confirmed, Tier-1-sourced obligation drawn directly from the consolidated InfoLEG regulatory text.

The most significant open question this cycle concerns the registry's own reported contents rather than the underlying obligation. The CNV's public PSAV Registry page showed a total of zero registered legal persons and zero registered natural persons at the point this cycle's research accessed it, a figure inconsistent with independent reporting suggesting an active registrant population under the mandatory regime. Three explanations are consistent with the available evidence and none can be ruled out: a live-data display artefact affecting the public page at the moment of access, a substantive purge of the register's contents, or a backlog in publication. This is recorded at Uncertain confidence and flagged for further primary-source research; it should not be read as evidence that the registration requirement itself has lapsed or been suspended.

Separately, BCRA Comunicacion 'A' 7506 (applicable to financial institutions) and Comunicacion 'A' 7759 (applicable to PSPCPs) together prohibit those regulated entities from carrying out or facilitating crypto-asset operations on behalf of clients, a prohibition dating to May 2022. Press reporting, sourced only to unnamed contacts, suggests BCRA is drafting rules to reverse this prohibition for banks specifically, but this reversal is unconfirmed at the primary-source level and is carried at Probable confidence for the existence of the underlying prohibition itself, with the reported reversal treated as a separate, lower-confidence regulatory-horizon item.

Outlook

The zero-registrant anomaly in the CNV's public PSAV Registry is the priority item for resolution: confirming whether this reflects a data artefact or a substantive development is necessary before the crypto_licensing module's traffic-light assessment can be treated as fully settled. The reported BCRA bank-crypto prohibition reversal remains a regulatory-horizon item pending primary confirmation, expected as early as Q2 2026 per press reporting, though that timeline itself is unconfirmed.

Crypto Licensing

Argentina's crypto licensing landscape is now defined by two parallel and, in one respect, conflicting regimes. On the permissive side, the CNV's Registro de Proveedores de Servicios de Activos Virtuales (PSAV) is fully in force: any person or entity providing virtual-asset services in or into Argentina must register in this CNV registry, per the framework created under Ley 27.739 article 37 and detailed by CNV RG 994/2024 and RG 1058/2025. The registration regime became fully operative on 31 December 2025, with the exclusive TAD (Trámites a Distancia) electronic filing channel having been mandatory since 26 May 2025. This registration track is confirmed at Confirmed confidence, drawing on a T1 primary CNV source, and represents the culmination of a statutory process that began with Ley 27.739's designation of the CNV as centralising authority for VASP oversight.

On the restrictive side, a separate and standing prohibition applies specifically to the banking channel: BCRA Comunicación A 7506, in force since May 2022, bars BCRA-regulated financial entities from participating, directly or indirectly, in offering crypto-assets to their clients. This prohibition is likewise Confirmed at T1 sourcing and remains the operative rule for banks even as the non-bank VASP registration track has become fully enforceable. Reports have circulated of a prospective BCRA framework that would permit licensed banks to offer crypto custody, trading and payment integration to retail clients, reversing the Com. A 7506 prohibition, with an expected timeframe around 2027 Q1. However, no primary BCRA communication confirming or enacting this reported change was located this cycle; the gap register explicitly notes that repeated press reporting since late 2025 of an imminent lifting has not been matched by any actual BCRA communication as of this cycle, so this remains an unenacted proposal rather than a current rule.

The result is a bifurcated licensing landscape: a settled, in-force, enforceable non-bank VASP registration track running through the CNV, and a settled, in-force, but potentially transitional prohibition on bank participation running through the BCRA. The CNV registration track is trending toward tightening in practical effect, evidenced by the ARGt enforcement action discussed in the token_classification sub-brief, which demonstrates the CNV is prepared to act against non-compliant products rather than treating registration as a nominal formality.

Outlook

The central open question for crypto licensing in Argentina is whether BCRA will formalise the reported plan to lift the Com. A 7506 bank-crypto prohibition. If enacted around the projected 2027 Q1 window, this would open a second, bank-mediated licensing channel alongside the CNV's non-bank VASP track, materially expanding the range of licensed entry points into the Argentine crypto market. Absent that development, the bank prohibition remains a hard perimeter, and market entry for crypto-asset activity continues to run exclusively through CNV VASP registration.

Consumer Protection

Argentina's PSAV framework, as set out in CNV Resolucion General 1058/2025, imposes firm, Confirmed, Tier-1-sourced consumer-protection obligations centred on custody and asset segregation. PSAVs may deposit client funds only in one of three permitted channels: BCRA-authorised local financial-entity accounts, foreign institutions meeting Basel-III-equivalent security standards, or BCRA-registered payment-service providers. This structure is designed to ensure client funds are held in institutions meeting a defined prudential standard, whether domestic or foreign, rather than being held at the PSAV's own discretion in an unregulated venue.

The same instrument expressly prohibits PSAVs from using client virtual assets or client fiat currency for their own account, a direct self-dealing prohibition that addresses one of the most consequential failure modes seen in unregulated or lightly regulated crypto-asset venues internationally, namely the commingling of client assets with a platform's own operating capital or proprietary trading activity. This custody-segregation and self-dealing prohibition is stated directly and unambiguously in the retrieved primary regulatory text, without qualification.

Taken together, these provisions place Argentina's PSAV consumer-protection framework on a comparatively solid footing relative to jurisdictions that have not codified custody-segregation and self-dealing prohibitions specifically for virtual-asset service providers. The requirement that foreign custodial arrangements meet Basel-III-equivalent standards is a notably specific benchmark, tying an otherwise crypto-native regulatory framework to an established international prudential standard.

Outlook

No enforcement action testing these custody-segregation or self-dealing provisions was identified this cycle. Watch for any future CNV enforcement or supervisory finding that would test whether PSAVs are complying with the three-channel custody requirement in practice, which would be the first indication of how rigorously this Confirmed obligation is being supervised on the ground.