Lemon, a leading crypto platform and Argentina's second-largest crypto exchange, announced the launch of the country's first Bitcoin-backed Visa credit card on January 14-15, 2026. The product enables users to access credit in Argentine pesos for daily expenses without selling or converting their Bitcoin, which serves as collateral.
Users can deposit 0.01 BTC to access up to 1 million Argentine pesos, approximately $700, in this initial phase. Lemon holds the Bitcoin as security until the balance is repaid.
Marcelo Cavazzoli, Lemon's founder and CEO, stated, "We created a simple way to access credit in pesos using Bitcoin as collateral, without needing a credit history." He called Bitcoin "the best store of value created in the history of humanity and the fundamental piece for the new digital economy."
Argentina has faced severe economic instability, with hyperinflation reaching over 200% annually in 2023-2024. By December 2025, annual inflation had dropped to around 31.5% year-over-year, the lowest in over seven years, following aggressive austerity measures under President Javier Milei and over $20 billion in U.S. bailouts. However, monthly price increases remained high, with a 2.8% month-on-month rise in December 2025.
Historical events like the 2001 "corralito" banking freeze, which restricted deposit access and wiped out savings, have led to cash hoarding and a shift toward hard assets such as Bitcoin. An estimated $271 billion in undeclared U.S. dollars is held outside the formal system.
Crypto adoption has surged in Latin America, with roughly $1.5 trillion in crypto activity from 2022 to 2025. Argentina ranks second after Brazil in per-capita usage. On Lemon's platform, which serves over 5.5 million users, Bitcoin now constitutes the largest share of user reserves, surpassing stablecoins and the peso itself.
As of late 2025 data, BTC accounted for about 34.54% of portfolio allocations among Lemon users. This reflects a behavioral shift toward viewing Bitcoin as a long-term hedge against peso volatility.