MSTR Cat

Crypto Law/Level VIII · Around the world/8.1 The Americas/Lesson 4

Mexico and Argentina

Two large Latin American markets with opposite instincts: Mexico fences crypto off from its banks and fintech licences, while Argentina registers crypto providers with its securities regulator.

Education, not legal, tax or investment advice. Crypto law differs between countries and states and changes often. Check the current rules where you live with a qualified lawyer or tax adviser before you act.

The lean path

The cheapest, lowest-tax, simplest and most private route the law allows, best first. Each step names the rule it rests on and the condition that keeps it lawful.

  1. Argentina: an individual’s digital-currency gains are taxed in the schedular income tax at 15% under the Ley 27.430 reform, not at progressive rates. Catch: losses on these assets offset only gains of the same type, in the same year or the next five.
  2. Argentina: before depositing, check the provider on the CNV’s free PSAV registry created by General Resolution 994/2024. Catch: registered providers apply UIF anti-money-laundering checks and travel-rule data under the 2025 framework, so expect identity and source-of-funds questions.
  3. Mexico: holding crypto for yourself needs no licence or registration. Platforms must file anti-money-laundering notices for client operations of 210 times the daily UMA or more (LFPIORPI article 17-XVI, reformed 16 July 2025). Catch: your identity data travels with those notices.
  4. Mexico: Income Tax Law article 93-XIX(b) exempts yearly gains on movable property up to three times the annual minimum wage. Catch: Mexican law has no crypto-specific rule and whether crypto qualifies is unsettled, so confirm with the SAT before relying on it.
  5. Mexico: banks and licensed fintechs cannot sell you crypto under Banxico Circular 4/2019, so the lawful on-ramp is an AML-registered exchange. Catch: that registration is a compliance filing, not a licence, so custody risk stays with you.

MaterialsMexico’s Ley para Regular las Instituciones de Tecnología Financiera (the Fintech Law), article 30Banco de México Circular 4/2019 and its amendment by Circular 37/2020Argentina’s CNV General Resolutions 994/2024, 1058/2025 and 1172 on virtual asset service providers (PSAV)

Wonder

  1. Can a Mexican bank or licensed fintech sell bitcoin to its customers?
  2. What does it mean for an Argentine crypto exchange to be registered with the CNV?
  3. Why do countries with similar problems end up with such different crypto rules?

Explore

  1. Mexico was early. Its Fintech Law, the Ley para Regular las Instituciones de Tecnología Financiera, was published on 9 March 2018 and created licensed financial technology institutions (ITFs), such as crowdfunding and electronic-payment firms. Article 30 says ITFs may operate only with the virtual assets that the Banco de México (Banxico) determines by general rules. That made the central bank the gatekeeper: it decides not only which assets count, but whether regulated institutions may touch them at all. The law treats crypto as something for the central bank to contain, not as a product for the regulated sector to sell (compare the Brazilian licensing approach in lesson 8.1.3).
  2. Banxico used that power restrictively. Circular 4/2019, published on 8 March 2019 and amended by Circular 37/2020 of 30 September 2020, governs virtual-asset operations by credit institutions and ITFs. It allows them to carry out only “internal operations” with virtual assets, and only with Banxico’s prior authorisation, which keeps the risk inside the institution rather than passing it to customers. In practice a Mexican bank or licensed fintech cannot offer customers crypto trading or custody as a product. Retail crypto services in Mexico have therefore grown outside the fintech licence, which is why the anti-money-laundering rules matter so much there.
  3. Mexico regulates those services through its anti-money-laundering statute, the Ley Federal para la Prevención e Identificación de Operaciones con Recursos de Procedencia Ilícita (LFPIORPI). Article 17, section XVI, lists the habitual and professional offering of exchange of virtual assets as a “vulnerable activity”. Businesses carrying it on must identify clients, keep records and file monthly notices with the financial intelligence unit through the tax administration’s (SAT) portal when operations reach the thresholds in the law. Being registered for this purpose is a compliance duty, not a licence or a sign of safety. A practical check is to ask whether a platform is an authorised ITF or only an AML-registered business.
  4. Argentina took the registration route. Ley 27.739, published in March 2024, amended the anti-money-laundering law to make virtual asset service providers obligated reporting parties and gave the Comisión Nacional de Valores (CNV), the securities regulator, a registry of proveedores de servicios de activos virtuales (PSAV). CNV General Resolution 994, published in the Official Gazette on 25 March 2024, created that registry and its entry requirements, and the financial intelligence unit, the UIF, issued Resolution 49/2024 the same day on PSAV anti-money-laundering duties. Registration became the condition for serving Argentine users.
  5. The CNV then moved from a list to a regime. General Resolution 1058, issued in March 2025, set out a comprehensive framework for PSAVs under Ley 27.739, covering registration categories, capital, custody and segregation of client assets, cybersecurity, transparency and the travel rule for transfers. On 14 October 2026 the CNV announced General Resolution 1172, which reorders that regime after its first period of use: it adds procedures to change a provider’s registration category, update registrations and cancel them, folds corporate and equity requirements into the CNV rules, and standardises periodic reporting. These details are new and may be adjusted further.
  6. Set side by side, the two countries show different instincts. Mexico keeps crypto away from banks and licensed fintechs and supervises the rest through anti-money-laundering law; Argentina, with a long history of capital controls and inflation, chose to register crypto providers with its securities regulator and supervise their conduct. Neither makes bitcoin legal tender, unlike El Salvador from 2021 (lesson 8.1.5). For a holder, the practical check is the same: search the regulator’s public list, the CNV PSAV registry in Argentina or the CNBV and SAT information in Mexico, before trusting a platform with money.

Key facts

  • Mexico’s Fintech Law was published on 9 March 2018.
  • Article 30 of Mexico’s Fintech Law allows financial technology institutions to operate only with virtual assets determined by the Banco de México.
  • Banxico Circular 4/2019 limits credit institutions and fintech institutions to internal operations with virtual assets, subject to prior authorisation.
  • Article 17, section XVI, of Mexico’s LFPIORPI treats the habitual and professional offering of virtual-asset exchange as a vulnerable activity.
  • Argentina’s CNV created its registry of virtual asset service providers by General Resolution 994, published on 25 March 2024 under Ley 27.739.
  • On 14 October 2026 Argentina’s CNV announced General Resolution 1172, reordering the regulatory regime for virtual asset service providers.

Exercise nine, six, three, one

9CollectList up to 9 ways a person in Mexico or Argentina might buy, hold or send crypto (bank app, local exchange, foreign exchange, peer-to-peer trade, stablecoin savings…).
6ClusterSort them into 6 groups by who supervises each route: central bank, fintech licence, securities regulator, anti-money-laundering registration only, foreign regulator, or nobody clear.
3DistillReduce the 6 to 3: the routes with the least regulatory protection for the user.
1CrystallizeWrite 1 sentence describing the main difference between Mexico’s and Argentina’s approach and what it means for someone choosing a platform.

Fact check

Dates, figures and claims checked against the published sources listed below.

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