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Modumetal founder Christina Lomasney takes tech transfer role at Pacific Northwest National Lab

Christina Lomasney, the co-founder and former CEO of high-tech metal startup Modumetal, has joined The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a government-backed research center based in Eastern Washington. As director of technology deployment…

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Christina Lomasney. (PNNL Photo)

Christina Lomasney, the co-founder and former CEO of high-tech metal startup Modumetal, has joined The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), a government-backed research center based in Eastern Washington.

As director of technology deployment and outreach, Lomasney will help take PNNL’s research out of the lab and into the real world, commercializing the intellectual property developed by world-leading scientists and engineers at the $1.2 billion organization.

PNNL aims to help the U.S. tackle some of the most challenging issues related sustainable energy, national energy, and scientific discovery.

“It’s just awesome,” Lomasney said of PNNL and its innovation prowess. “Like, holy mackerel. How often in life do you get to have this kind of impact?”

Lomasney certainly has the right experience for the role.

In 2007 she founded Modumetal, a Seattle startup that developed an innovative metal manufacturing process as a way to offer better performance at a cheaper price than conventional steel. As CEO she helped form key early partnerships with corporate partners such as Chevron and BP.

Lomasney also founded Isotron, which worked with government agencies on environmental remediation tech (Modumetal spun out of Isotron). She was also previously a project manager at Boeing.

The University of Washington-trained physicist and longtime entrepreneur left Modumetal last year after she was terminated by the board following a 13-year run.

During the pandemic she returned to the UW and finished her master’s degree in physics. Lomasney also spent some time consulting startups.

When the opportunity to join PNNL arose, she knew it was the right next step, particularly “as energy represents an existential threat to the human race.”

“This is an organization that’s going to change the grid as we know it,” Lomasney said.

PNNL was created more than five decades ago in part to help the nation reduce oil dependency, Lomasney noted. And now its focus is on building the technology and materials that will power the next generation of energy amid pressing global needs for new solutions.

Lomasney said she wants to help PNNL create more effective ways of engaging with industry, not only at the end of the tech transfer process but even earlier on — for example, using industry partners to figure out which technologies to prioritize.

(PNNL Photo)

PNNL was formed in 1965 and employs more than 5,000. It reported $1.24 billion in annual spending for the most recent financial year. Nearly 200 companies have PNNL roots. The organization is operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

“To date, Christina has spent her career turning innovative technology into thriving new businesses. We want to tap that expertise and look for innovative pathways to bring our intellectual property — which spans nearly every U.S. market. — to industry,” Tony Peurrung, PNNL’s deputy director for science and technology, said in a statement.

Lomasney is now based in Richland, Wash., where PNNL is headquartered, but she still has a home in Seattle. In addition to her new role at PNNL she is also working with Washington State University on building an entrepreneurship program.

Lomasney also recently launched an innovation and industrialization workshop called JackWorks (previously known as LWorks) but is putting that project on hiatus for now.

Modumetal, meanwhile, continues to operate under new leadership. Lomasney previously said she would not have left the company, and that her termination was the board’s decision.

Lomasney, who is still a shareholder in the company, told GeekWire last week that she wants to see Modumetal succeed. “I hope the company is wildly successful,” she said.

The company raised $14 million in 2019 and a new SEC filing reveals that it recently pulled in additional funding. We’ve reached out to Modumetal for more information.

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Chicago Board Of Elections ‘Mistakenly’ Left Out Over 9,000 Mail-In Ballots In Primary Election

Chicago Board Of Elections ‘Mistakenly’ Left Out Over 9,000 Mail-In Ballots In Primary Election

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times…

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March 26, 2024

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Chicago Board Of Elections 'Mistakenly' Left Out Over 9,000 Mail-In Ballots In Primary Election

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Chicago Board of Elections official said Sunday that he had “mistakenly” left out over 9,000 mail-in ballots from one of the races in last week’s Illinois state primary election, sparking renewed scrutiny around voting by mail in the run-up to the November presidential election.

“In adding up the total number of Vote By Mail ballots the Board had received back so far, I mistakenly left out additional ballots” that came in by mail on the evening of March 18, a day prior to Election Day, according to a March 23 statement by Max Bever, Director of Public Information at the Chicago Board of Elections.

The race in which the apparent tabulation error took place is between two Democrat candidates for state’s attorney in Chicago’s Cook County, Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III.

A voter at a voting location at the Humboldt Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library in Chicago, Illinois, on March 19, 2024 (Nathan Worcester/The Epoch Times).

Ms. O'Neill Burke, a former appellate judge who trails by roughly 14,000 votes, is widely seen as the more tough-on-crime candidate of the two.

“We should be booming, and we’re not because of crime,” Ms. O’Neill Burke told The Associated Press. “This is something we can fix.”

Mr. Harris, a professor and former prosecutor who’s the more progressive candidate of the two, has said punishments should consider racial disparities.

The Chicago race is open because the current State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who faced criticism for being soft on crime, declined to run a third time.

‘I Traded Speed for Accuracy’

One of the campaign issues in the Cook County state’s attorney race has been the future of Ms. Foxx’s controversial policy not to prosecute retail theft as a felony if the value of the stolen goods is below $1,000.

Ms. O'Neill Burke has been critical of the policy.

“It doesn’t deter crime, it promotes it,” she said.

By contrast, Mr. Harris has vowed to keep it in place, if elected.

“If someone came and took my cellphone, is that cellphone worth a felony on your record? I do not think so,” he told AP. “We look at recidivism. We charge everyone appropriately.”

The Cook County state’s attorney’s office is the second largest in the country, after Los Angeles.

Mr. Bever said in a March 24 update that the attorneys for both candidates met earlier that day and agreed that ballot counting and ballot signature verification would continue through Sunday, with poll watchers present.

He said that election judges would be processing and counting roughly 13,086 mail-in ballots that had already been reviewed for timeliness, signature verification, and voter histories, with the vast majority of these received back via drop box on Election Day (March 19).

Around 9,000 of these hadn’t been counted in the initial tally, with Mr. Bever providing an update on the fate of the initially missing ballots.

“I made an error in reporting the number of Vote By Mail ballots received back on Monday, March 18 before Election Day that should have been included in the ‘received by Election Day’ numbers,” Mr. Bever said in the March 24 update.

“Approximately 9,143 Vote By Mail additional ballots received back on Monday should have been included in this ‘received by Election Day’ number that would be processed and counted after Election Day, March 19,” he continued.

The elections official said that the missing ballots had been secured in a receiving cage until they could be processed by scanning machines for signature verification and to rule out possible double-voting.

He added that the missing ballots were inspected, processed, and counted by election judges between March 22 and March 23, and are already reflected in the unofficial results.

Preliminary results, as of 6 p.m. on March 24, show Mr. Harris in the lead with 164,371 votes (52.14 percent) and Ms. O'Neill Burke trailing with 150,900 votes (47.86 percent).

The final tally could still change as the counting period lasts through April 2, with official results to be announced on April 9.

‘Sounds Fishy’

The incident drew scrutiny and criticism on social media, where a report about it was shared by the End Wokeness account, which pointed out that many of the ballots were from dropboxes, where postmarks aren’t required.

“Sounds fishy,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded to the post.

“Mail in dropbox elections are a joke,” the KanekoaTheGreat account, which has over 750,000 followers, posted.

“Chicago keeps having more problems. There’s no way to have confidence in election results when ballots are ‘found’ later,” internet personality and former candidate for the U.S. Senate, Paul Szypula, said in a post on X.

“Drop boxes also are sketchy and just invite cheating and mistakes. Democrat-run elections are rife with fraud and we see it happening more and more,” he added.

Voting by mail has been the subject of increased scrutiny and criticism following the 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump claims was marred by irregularities and fraud that he says cost him a win.

A recent study exploring the likely impact that fraudulent mail-in ballots had in the 2020 election found that the outcome would “almost certainly” have been different without the massive expansion of absentee ballots.

The study was based on data obtained from a Heartland/Rasmussen survey conducted in December 2023, which revealed that roughly one in five mail-in voters, or 20 percent, admitted to actions that could be potentially fraudulent in the presidential election.

After the researchers carried out additional analyses of the raw data, they concluded that there was a higher percentage of fraudulent mail-in ballots. They now believe that 28.2 percent of people who voted by mail in 2020 committed at least one type of behavior that is, “under most circumstances, illegal,” and so potentially amounts to voter fraud.

A Heartland Institute research editor and research fellow who was involved in the study explained to The Epoch Times that there are narrow exceptions where a surveyed behavior may be legal, like filling out a mail-in ballot on behalf of another voter if that person is blind, illiterate, or disabled, and needs assistance.

However, research fellow Jack McPherrin said such cases were within the margin of error and not statistically significant.

The new study found that, absent the huge expansion of mail-in ballots during the pandemic, President Trump would most likely have won.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/26/2024 - 21:00

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ARPA-H awards Columbia researchers nearly $39M to develop a living knee replacement

A team of researchers from Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and Columbia Engineering has been awarded up to a $38.95 million contract…

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March 26, 2024

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A team of researchers from Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and Columbia Engineering has been awarded up to a $38.95 million contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to build a living knee replacement from biomaterials and human stem cells, including a patient’s own cells. ARPA-H is a federal funding agency that funds transformative biomedical and health research breakthroughs, rapidly translating research from the lab to applications in the marketplace. 

Credit: ARPA-H

A team of researchers from Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and Columbia Engineering has been awarded up to a $38.95 million contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to build a living knee replacement from biomaterials and human stem cells, including a patient’s own cells. ARPA-H is a federal funding agency that funds transformative biomedical and health research breakthroughs, rapidly translating research from the lab to applications in the marketplace. 

The Award

The award, part of the ARPA-H’s Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis (NITRO) program, will support the development of NOVAJoint, a revolutionary biocompatible, low-cost, patient-specific knee joint replacement. This high-risk project builds upon more than two decades of collaborative musculoskeletal research at Columbia in engineering and medicine, and promises to offer a transformative solution for the more than thirty million people in the U.S. who suffer from osteoarthritis. NITRO is the first Health Science Futures specific program under the new ARPA-H agency, established by the Biden Administration.

The project is led by Clark T. Hung, Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Orthopedic Science (in Orthopedic Surgery) at Columbia Engineering, and Nadeen O. Chahine, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, leaders in tissue regeneration and orthopedic research.

“ARPA-H is a hugely important endeavor that could bring about a breakthrough in personalized and patient-specific solutions,” said Shih-Fu Chang, Dean of Columbia Engineering. “As society seeks to address the challenge of population aging, such collaborative approaches combining engineering and medicine will help improve conditions for those with osteoarthritis and many other musculoskeletal conditions.”

“We saw during the COVID pandemic just how fast science can move when teams of researchers are given the support and resources to work together,” said Katrina Armstrong, Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University. “By focusing Columbia’s expertise in biomedical engineering and orthopedic surgery onto a single goal, this funding from ARPA-H has the potential to rapidly revolutionize the way we treat osteoarthritis and the way we do biomedical research in the future.” 

Impact of Osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease that is the most common type of arthritis. It gradually worsens over time as cartilage, the specialized connective tissue that covers the ends of bones, wears down, leading to pain, stiffness, and loss of mobility. Osteoarthritis is already the third most common type of disability and has an estimated economic burden of more than $136 billion per year. It disproportionately affects women, the elderly, certain racial/ethnic minorities, and those with lower socioeconomic status. The prevalence of knee osteoarthritis has been rising due to aging of the population, increasing rates of joint injury, and, significantly, obesity.

The clinical gold standard treatment for knee joints ravaged by pervasive OA or traumatic injury is a total joint replacement using prosthetic implants made of metal and plastic. Although knee replacement is widely successful, there are some major drawbacks to these conventional materials. There can be life-changing complications and limitations of current artificial knee replacements, including infection, loosening, hardware failure, stiffness, abnormal kinematics (i.e., the way a knee moves), instability, and persistent pain. Historically, knee replacements have had a limited lifespan with a portion failing at 15 to 20 years due to plastic wear or implant loosening. This means that younger patients may need one or even two revision implants. The demand for total knee replacements is projected to grow by 673% — 3.48 million procedures from 2005 to 2030 — with total knee revisions projected to grow 601% between 2005 to 2030. 

NOVAJoint — a living solution to ravaged knees

With the ARPA-H award, the researchers propose to design NOVAJoint to address the urgent, unmet clinical need for a permanent solution for patients with advanced OA where a conventional knee replacement is indicated. The project’s goal is to develop a replacement knee of regenerated living cartilage and bone that integrates seamlessly with the native bone and restores pain-free joint function. Since cells are required to regenerate and maintain this living implant, the team will create two versions of NOVAJoint: a version that uses patient’s own cells and one that uses donor cells. The researchers expect NOVAJoint to substantially extend the implant life, reducing complications, and to become a permanent and final procedure for the treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee.  With an aggressive timeline, in the first two years, the team will create the first prototypes before moving into preclinical and clinical studies in the final three years, including a Phase 1 safety clinical trial in the final year.

Though the first NOVAJoint is still in development, many of the technologies and scientific discoveries necessary to create the joint have already been developed and validated by Columbia researchers through funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and institutional support.

“The ARPA-H NITRO program has enabled us to leverage our innovative technologies and expertise to solve one of the most difficult challenges in biomedical engineering,” said Hung, a groundbreaking researcher in musculoskeletal regeneration.

The Collaborators

The NOVAJoint team will fabricate a living knee replacement using modern manufacturing techniques and capitalizes on the critical mass of musculoskeletal researchers at Columbia with collective expertise in biomechanics, biomaterials, stem cells, and orthopedic surgery from across the School of Engineering and Applied Science, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and College of Dental Medicine, building on a decades-long history of collaboration between the Departments of Orthopedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering. The project team is multidisciplinary, with scientific leadership from faculty in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Orthopedic Surgery, and Dental Medicine. Co-PIs and Task Leads include Treena Arinzeh, Professor of Biomedical Engineering; Gerard Ateshian, Andrew Walz Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering;  Alice Huang, Associate Professor of Bioengineering (in Orthopedic Surgery); and Roshan Shah, Russell A. Hibbs Associate Professor of Orthopedics (in Orthopedic Surgery) and Director of Complex Reconstruction; Chang Lee, Associate Professor of Craniofacial Engineering (in Dental Medicine).

Working with the Columbia team is James L. Cook, William & Kathryn Allen Distinguished Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Missouri, who will lead preclinical testing. Drs. Cook and Shah will also lead the clinical trial, which will be recruiting patients at both universities. The team is partnering with New York Stem Cell Foundation and New York Blood Center for GMP manufacturing of NOVAJoint.

“This is a big challenge, but by creating a large and experienced team that works well together and can be focused on one goal, we expect to succeed,” said Chahine, a leader in orthopedic research. “NOVAJoint will mark a major milestone in the field of regenerative medicine and orthopedic surgery, and has the potential to revolutionize musculoskeletal treatments of the many joints that degenerate with age or injury.”

Equity and Commercialization

In addition to the advancement in science, equity and commercialization are key pillars to the programmatic success of this project. Part of NITRO’s vision is to establish a clear path to commercialization, which is a prerequisite for successful clinical translation and impact of disruptive technologies such as NOVAJoint. ARPA-H has a firm commitment to equitable healthcare access for all, irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, geography, employment, insurance, and socioeconomic status.

“Our goal is to push knee replacement to its next stage of evolution and to create a better solution to osteoarthritis for all Americans. Every day patients ask me about new advancements in knee replacement surgery, hoping for validation of their years of suffering before seeking care,” says Dr. Shah.  “Now I have something to tell them. I think the big orthopedic companies will be watching this project closely, and will be vying for the chance to commercialize NOVAJoint nationally.”

In order to meet these programmatic goals, the team will also be leveraging the expertise and resources of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research and Columbia Technology Ventures. The NOVAJoint team will include a full-time Equity Officer who will help develop key equity performance indicators. The equity officer will work closely with Rachel C. Shelton, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Mailman School of Public Health and co-director of the Irving Institute’s Community Engagement Core Resource (CECR) and Lisa Royse, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, University of Missouri, to foster research conducted in partnership with community stakeholders to better inform the application of scientific findings to clinical and community settings.

The Research Team

The scientific and clinical faculty at Columbia include:

  • Clark Hung, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Orthopedic Sciences (in Orthopedic Surgery)
  • Gerard Ateshian, Andrew Walz Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Biomedical Engineering
  • Nadeen Chahine, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering (in Orthopedic Surgery)
  • Alice Huang, Associate Professor of Bioengineering (in Orthopedic Surgery)
  • Treena Arinzeh, Professor of Biomedical Engineering
  • Chang Lee, Associate Professor of Craniofacial Engineering (in Dental Medicine) 
  • Roshan Shah, Russell A. Hibbs Associate Professor and Director of Complex Reconstruction at Columbia University
  • Kam Leong, Samuel Y. Sheng Professor of Biomedical Engineering (in Systems Biology)
  • Helen Lu, Percy K. and Vida L.W. Hudson Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Senior Vice Dean of Faculty Affairs and Advancement 
  • X. Edward Guo, Stanley Dicker Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Medical Sciences (in Medicine)
  • José McFaline-Figueroa, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
  • Samuel Sia, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Vice Provost for the Fourth Purpose and Strategic Impact
  • Steve Thomopoulos, Robert E. Carroll and Jane Chace Carroll Laboratories Professor of Biomechanics (in Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering) 
  • Elan Goldwaser, Assistant Professor of Sports Medicine (in the Center for Family and Community Medicine, in Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery) at CUIMC
  • Mildred Embree, Dr. Edwin S. Robinson Associate Professor of Dental Medicine
  • Joanna Smeeton, H.K. Corning Assistant Professor Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine Research (in Rehabilitation and Regenerative Medicine) (in Genetics and Development)

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Argentinians Buy Bitcoin to Combat Inflation, Pass Friendly Legislation

Argentina’s plummeting economy has seen citizens turn to Bitcoin as a store of value. The legislature passes friendly laws as the pro-Bitcoin president…

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March 26, 2024

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The below is an excerpt from a recent edition of Bitcoin Magazine Pro, Bitcoin Magazine's premium markets newsletter. To be among the first to receive these insights and other on-chain bitcoin market analysis straight to your inbox, subscribe now.

As the Argentine economy is racked by record inflation, its people are turning to Bitcoin as a way to protect their economic security.

The Argentine Republic is currently experiencing the worst inflation rates in the world. The nation’s economy has experienced low levels of inflation, somewhere around 25%, for decades; yet the pandemic sharpened a downward trend to devastating effect. The inflation rate hit 70% in 2022 and reached 100% the following February, but 2023 proved to be an absolutely murderous year for Argentina's economy. Inflation rates crossed the 200% point around the time that Bitcoin-friendly president Javier Milei first took office in December, and the rate currently sits at a mind-boggling 274%. With figures like this, ordinary citizens’ wages and life savings have evaporated practically overnight, and people are looking towards more radical solutions to get their lives on track.

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In a particularly encouraging development, ordinary citizens are turning to Bitcoin in record numbers for its classic use-case as a store of value. Already a nation with a high rate of Bitcoin acceptance, Argentina has doubled down on the decentralized currency as the most popular local exchange reports 20-month highs in trading volume. Lemon Cash, the exchange in question, claimed that Bitcoin transactions in the first full week of March 2024 were more than double the average rate throughout 2023. Belo, another prominent exchange based in the country, reported year-to-year increases that were closer to tenfold. A particularly interesting wrinkle in the development is that Bitcoin is not only replacing dollars, but also dollar-backed stablecoins which saw trading volumes decrease by 60-70%. Belo’s CEO Manuel Beaudroit stated that “The user decides to buy Bitcoin when they see the news that the currency is going up, while stablecoin is more pragmatic and many times used for transactional purposes, as a vehicle to make payments abroad”.

Ironically, Bloomberg claims, some of President Milei’s economic positions have actually influenced the switch from the dollar to Bitcoin, but through some unexpected and indirect means. The radical libertarian has begun his administration with a series of broad-reaching reforms to try and control the situation, reducing spending and attempting to dismantle or privatize a variety of state-owned businesses. A particular goal of his administration to date has been to build a budget surplus for the federal government, for a variety of reasons: using these funds more deliberately, reaching targets based on agreements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and of course beginning a positive trend in Argentina’s economic statistics. A component of this surplus policy has been to build a similar reserve of American greenbacks, reducing their circulation within the country. The exchange rate of pesos to dollars took a serious hit, and the once-popular store of value became less attractive than the skyrocketing Bitcoin.

Reports from Chainalysis put some hard numbers onto these general trends: Argentina leads all of Latin America in transaction volume, and is second place overall in terms of grassroots adoption. Representatives from Lemon Cash estimated in this report that the number of Argentinians using Bitcoin or other digital currencies is around 5M, out of a population of 45M! Such impressive figures are not merely the result of a brief period of economic misfortune, but should instead be considered as a sort of tipping point: Bitcoin acceptance has been quietly growing for years, and now the crisis is providing the jump for it to become a fully mainstream fiat alternative. The rate of growth has been so prodigious that an unexpected “cousin” of the industry has even been developing, with crypto-related scam and phishing activity increasing fivefold. Clearly, the market is full of people new to Bitcoin’s chaotic ecosystem.

Relevant to the rise of unsavory activity targeting new Bitcoin users, Argentina is beginning to pass some new regulations over the industry. The Senate unanimously passed a new law in March, opening up a new set of standards that virtual asset service providers must adhere to. The standards are generally related to various consumer protection and anti-fraud precautions, with the country’s main securities agency set to enforce these new standards. The existing Bitcoin community has reacted to these new laws with consternation, fearing that this legislation will lead to market consolidation. Large operations, after all, would have the resources to comply with these new requirements immediately, while smaller startups may find themselves swamped. Still, legislators are also working on a series of tax exemptions for digital asset holders, that may hopefully help smooth over some of this animosity.

Curiously absent from these proceedings, however, is President Milei. The man espoused some pro-Bitcoin views on the campaign trail, and has a general economic philosophy that aligns with some of Bitcoin’s core fundamentals, but nevertheless he has held little public presence in many of Bitcoin’s developments. Even the incidental rise of Bitcoin fueled by his own policies have not led him to make public statements on the situation. Still, Milei has had his hands full from a far-reaching series of economic reforms and austerity policies, balancing the confidence of global markets with a concerning rise in poverty across several metrics. Milei has managed to slow the ballooning inflation somewhat, but at great cost: reduced government spending is pushing more citizens over the brink. As Reuters reported, the crisis is far from over, with sales, activity and production all on a downward slope.

In other words, it seems likely that Milei personally has Bitcoin on the back burner, as he has a much greater priority in getting the economy under control and tempering the possibility of social unrest. His general popularity is holding up despite these adversities, but a contentious issue like bitcoinization may simply be a battle he is unwilling to start. Once things calm down, we may look forward to his endorsement of Bitcoin once again, but nothing is truly certain. Still, despite his lack of direct Bitcoin-friendly initiatives, the legislature is still making positive moves in its own right. It seems very unlikely that Argentina will turn actively hostile to Bitcoin in the face of this inflation, such as with Nigeria’s crackdown amidst a lagging currency.

Ultimately, the future of Bitcoin in Argentina is up to the Bitcoiners themselves. Economic crisis has presented the community with record highs in adoption, and Bitcoin is well past a household name. Will this trend continue as the economy recovers? Will a fledgling community of Bitcoin-related businesses and developers end up transformed into a dynamic and profitable industry? There are too many variables to say for certain. Nevertheless, Bitcoin is a chaotic market that was itself founded in the wake of the United States’ own economic woes of the 2008 collapse. The worldwide community has displayed an innovative and enterprising spirit that can lead to success in even the most marginal situations. Bitcoin has been on the rise globally, in other words, and there’s no reason to doubt that it won’t keep rising in Argentina too. 

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