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Argentina has redrawn the digital finance map in Latin America, having unveiled a sweeping framework to bring virtual asset service providers (VASPs) under formal regulatory oversight.
General Resolution No. 1058/2025, which was issued in March 2025 and takes effect in December 2025, establishes a regulatory framework that brings VASPs under the supervision of the National Securities Commission (CNV).
The regulation is comprehensive, covering the VASP registration process, as well as a myriad of operational requirements, prudential standards and anti-money laundering/counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) obligations. The regulation also outlines five core activities that VASPs are permitted to carry out:
- Virtual asset-to-fiat currency exchange.
- Virtual asset-to-virtual asset exchange.
- Transfers of virtual assets.
- Custodianship or administration over virtual assets.
- Other financial services related to virtual asset offerings or issuance.
The regulation’s publication marks a major shift in Argentina, where the virtual assets market was previously characterised by limited oversight through patchwork guidance.
However, the CNV was sure to strike a careful balance in its new level of supervision, stating that the regulation was crafted to “avoid over-regulation or imposing unnecessary costs, while fostering innovation”.
As the first major Latin America economy to comprehensively regulate VASPs, this shift positions Argentina at the forefront of a regional rethink on virtual assets, where oversight is balanced against innovation. At the same time, the VASP framework has knock-on implications for other markets within the Argentine financial system.
The bigger picture
The establishment of a VASP framework in Argentina reflects the country’s economic realities. In recent years, persistent inflation and strict foreign exchange controls have pushed Argentines toward virtual assets as a store of value, remittance channel and unofficial hedge.
This volatile environment has generated fiscal and supervisory incentives for the Argentine government to reroute virtual asset activity through regulated entities.
With a regulatory framework for VASPs in place, the government gains greater taxation potential, better visibility over suspicious transactions and more robust consumer protection mechanisms.
The VASP framework also aligns with President Javier Milei’s broader push to overhaul and streamline the architecture of Argentina’s financial system.
Since taking office, his administration has emphasised deregulation, institutional simplification and the reduction of discretionary state intervention. This is exemplified by Decree No. 70/2023, an omnibus package that eliminated hundreds of regulations across industries, simplifying markets and reducing state control.
Although the VASP framework is not deregulatory in the narrow sense, it reflects Milei’s preference for clear, rules-based regimes that replace ad hoc or otherwise opaque oversight. Therefore, the framework fits within Milei’s wider agenda to modernise the Argentine financial system, while adding regulatory clarity for investors and market participants.
In recent months, the CNV has issued a string of regulations that also further this agenda, including simplified rules for public offerings and measures deregulating financial trusts.
Meanwhile, CNV initiatives establishing pathways for the tokenisation of traditional financial assets point toward a longer-term strategy to embed blockchain applications directly into capital markets. In this sense, the VASP framework is not just a regulatory endpoint, but a foundation for broader technological enablement throughout the financial system.
Argentina’s pivot towards full-fledged VASP regulation must also be analysed against the backdrop of Latin America’s evolving virtual asset landscape. Countries such as Chile and Mexico have recently moved toward more standardised and transparent regulatory regimes, while others, such as Costa Rica and Colombia, maintain fragmented or enforcement-driven approaches.
Additionally, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) published implementing regulations for a VASP framework of its own in November 2025, which are set to take effect in February 2026.
Like its Argentine counterpart, the Brazilian framework was crafted to foster innovation responsibly, with the BCB emphasising the importance of “balancing the incentive for innovation with the security of trading virtual assets for the financial system”.
However, Brazil’s approach is more institution-centric, grounded in the BCB’s long-standing supervisory architecture for other financial products and services. Argentina, by contrast, is moving from a previously fragmented landscape toward a more unified licensing and oversight model, making its transition more abrupt and its framework more focused on establishing baseline controls for a market that had been largely unregulated.
Regardless, Argentina’s publication of a comprehensive VASP framework positions it alongside Brazil as a regional standard-setter, and moves it away from the improvisational guidance that previously defined its virtual assets oversight.
The emerging alignment between Argentina and Brazil may help bolster regulatory convergence in Latin America more broadly and attract institutional players seeking clearer rules across the region’s major markets.
Why should you care?
Argentina’s VASP framework is not just a crypto-specific reform. Instead, it is emblematic of a structural change in how digital value flows will be governed across the broader financial system.
For traditional financial institutions, the change signals that virtual assets are graduating from the periphery into the regulatory mainstream. Institutions that previously treated virtual assets as a niche or speculative vertical must now acknowledge them as formally supervised market components, not only with clearer regulatory expectations, but more apparent competitive opportunities.
On the one hand, increased regulatory clarity brings heightened compliance obligations, reporting requirements and potential supervisory scrutiny that institutions must manage carefully.
On the other hand, this same clarity de-risks barriers to strategic involvement in the virtual asset space. Well-defined rules around custody, exchange operations and governance make it easier to evaluate partnerships, offer compliant virtual asset-adjacent services or integrate tokenised assets into product suites.
Institutions that ignore this opportunity risk ceding ground to more agile competitors positioning themselves at the forefront of blockchain-enabled finance.
The new regime also carries operational implications. Payment service providers (PSPs) and remittance companies, in particular, will enjoy an environment with clearer rules governing the incorporation of virtual assets into alternative settlement rails and cross-border flows.
As retail adoption of virtual assets continues to grow in Argentina, regulated players can explore market opportunities with greater regulatory certainty, potentially improving efficiency and broadening customer reach.
There is also a competitive and reputational angle: as the CNV iterates on and elevates standards for VASPs, customers may gravitate toward VASPs and partner institutions that demonstrate superior transparency, cybersecurity and consumer protection.
Businesses that proactively align with or exceed new regulatory expectations can position themselves as trusted gateways into the virtual asset economy, while those that lag behind risk losing trust, and customers, to early adopters.
The framework also opens the door to future integration between traditional finance and tokenised markets.
With the CNV already developing asset tokenisation pathways, VASPs and partner institutions that monitor and engage with the VASP regime will be better prepared for upcoming phases of regulatory and market evolution.
This includes the potential for tokenised deposits, tokenised securities and blockchain-based settlement systems, advancements that are likely to accelerate the digitisation of finance in Argentina in the coming years.
Next steps
Traditional financial institutions and VASPs should treat Argentina’s new VASP framework as both a compliance priority and a strategic opportunity.
These businesses should consider taking the following steps to manage regulatory exposure while positioning themselves for the next phase of digital finance in the country:
- Map exposure to VASP activities. Identify whether existing or planned service offerings, partnerships and asset flows intersect with regulated virtual asset services.
- Assess registration implications. Determine whether the business (or any of its affiliates) need to register with the CNV or rely on a regulated partner.
- Create an internal VASP taskforce. Monitor upcoming refinements to CNV regulations, technical standards and supervisory criteria to adjust policies proactively.
- Update compliance, risk management and cybersecurity controls. Ensure controls meet requirements surrounding custody, transaction monitoring, asset segregation, incident reporting and others.
- Engage with potential partners. Open discussions with VASPs and technology vendors to explore compliant collaboration models.
- Evaluate tokenisation opportunities. Track CNV initiatives on tokenised assets to assess potential use cases in payments, settlement or capital markets products.
- Upgrade infrastructure where needed. Prepare operational systems for blockchain-related data and reporting, as well as client asset safeguards.
- Catalyse internal digital transformation. Position the business to compete in a market where virtual and tokenised assets will increasingly shape customer expectations and innovation.
- Track future VASP rulemaking. With the CNV continuing to refine its framework as it relates to foreign VASPs, asset requirements and governance requirements, closely monitor the promulgation of new regulations and guidance.
