Chile has taken a hard turn. In a decisive runoff on December 14, José Antonio Kast, a conservative former congressman and leader of the Republican Party, won the presidency with about 58% of the vote, over left-wing Jeannette Jara.
It marks Chile’s biggest shift to the right since its return to democracy. The markets took it as a deregulatory signal: the peso and stocks reinforced about expectations of looser labor rules, lower business taxes and a law enforcement effort focused on the crime and migration pressures that dominated the campaign.
Kast’s path to La Moneda cut through public concerns about safety and stagnant growth. His platform combined a promise to “restore order” with promises to revive private investment, especially around copper.
He also softened some aspects of previous campaigns to court center-right voters in a divided Congress. The immediate message after the election was unity, but the political calculations ahead point to incrementalism.
Yet Kast campaigned in the regional slipstream of leaders who built brands on safety and deregulation rhetoric. He has openly cited El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele as a model for crime, and his comparisons to “tough on crime” policies resonated with Chileans frustrated by organized crime and migration shocks.
Argentine libertarian President Javier Milei promptly met with Kast in Buenos Aires a few days after the election, a snapshot of ideological alignment in the Andes. Yet everyone faces different limitations at home.
That political backdrop naturally raises a crypto question: Does a turn to the right put Chile on a Bukele-like path for Bitcoin?
The short answer from Chilean institutions and market structure is no. The longer answer is more interesting and globally relevant.
Chile is not El Salvador – and that’s the point
It is tempting to turn to the analogy with El Salvador. In 2021, President Nayib Bukele made Bitcoin legal tender, a first-of-its-kind political statement that continues to make headlines today.
Whatever you think of its outcomes, the move was top-down and symbolic. Chile’s path will likely be a bottom-up and technocratic one, driven more by legal and technical constraints than by political constraints.
Three anchors make Chile different. First, the central bank (BCCh) has done the opposite of crypto theater in recent years.
It was published soberly CBDC analyses and implemented the open finance regime in addition to the Fintech Act Commission for the Financial Markets (CMF). That kind of commitment signals caution, not sudden gambles like making crypto legal tender.
Secondly, the pension system towers above the local market. At the end of 2024, Chilean pension funds had $186.4 billion.
By mid-2025, that figure rose to over $207 billion. That was the case in October reaches approximately $229.6 billion.
That’s $229.6 billion in assets that only move when the governance, risk, custody and valuation boxes are checked. This is a system that absorbs new asset classes through regulated wrappers, not through presidential tweets.
Third, Chilean tax and compliance rules already treat crypto as one income taxable asset. This reinforces the idea that adoption will occur through formal intermediaries (brokers, funds, banks) rather than through mandates at the cash register.
That’s the macro background. It’s also why Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, the co-founder and CSO of Bitcoin lender Ledn, thinks Chile’s “crypto moment” will be nothing like El Salvador or Argentina.
“I think it is unlikely that the Chilean Central Bank and the new government will attempt to make Bitcoin legal tender in the country,” he tells us.
According to him, incremental policies that normalize use are best suited. That could include de minimis tax relief for small transactions and clear permission for banks to offer custody and buy/sell services.
The goal is to allow citizens and companies to hold BTC locally without legal ambiguity.
Follow the rails: ETFs, bank custody and (eventually) pensions
So what appears on the ground first?
“Local ETF products that allow regulated entities to gain exposure,” says Di Bartolomeo, pointing to the wave of spot Bitcoin ETFs abroad as an example.
In the US, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) started trading in January 2024 and quickly turned the asset into portfolio-grade exposure for traditional institutions. Chile does not need to reinvent the wheel; it must translate it into local packaging and distribution.
From there the gate factor is bank rails. If the central bank and CMF establish a clear set of permissions for custody and facilitation at the bank level, day-to-day access will follow.
That includes broker integration, discretionary portfolio sleeves, collateralized lending and corporate bond programs that can hold and hedge.
Chile has been methodical in building these frameworks through the Fintech law (law 21.521) and the Open Finance System Regulation issued in mid-2024. This basis enables banks to add new services without disrupting risk management.
But what about the elephant in the room: pensions (AFPs)? Di Bartolomeo’s view is pragmatic: pensions are rule-bound vehicles, often excluded from direct purchases of international funds or limited in how they can hold assets not based in Chile.
That is why “jurisdictional options” are important. If international spot ETFs are off limits, domestic ETFs or ETNs could be the bridge AFPs need.
Even then, the size would start small, depending on custody standards, valuation methods, risk buckets and tax treatment. These are the mundane, make-or-break details that almost never make headlines.
The numbers illustrate the commitment. A pension system that ended at $186.4 billion in 2024 and continued to grow through 2025 doesn’t need to change much.
A 25 to 50 basis point sleeve through local wrappers would represent a potential flow of billions of dollars over time. But it also means that regulators want custody segregation, price source integrity, and stress-testable liquidity before the first basis point moves.
The Chilean position on stablecoins also fits into this ‘regulated rails’ position. Legal analysis this year marked how the Fintech legal framework can recognize and channel the use of stablecoins into the formal system.
It is a careful approach that reduces the risks of informal dollarization while maintaining monetary control. Expect clarity here in the short term to accelerate ramps at retail level.
Catalysts, deal killers and the scoreboard to watch
If the base case is that rails come first, what could accelerate or stop this? Di Bartolomeo’s main deal-killers are institutional: (1) any central bank restrictions on domestic buying/selling of BTC, (2) punitive tax treatment for BTC investments, and (3) restrictions on the use of USD-pegged stablecoins.
Both would push activity offshore or into the shadows, which is the opposite of Chile’s decade-long project to deepen and formalize its markets.
On the other hand, the catalysts are simple: bank custody guidelines, green lights from securities regulators for local ETFs/ETNs, and clear compliance pathways for distribution.
There is already movement on the policy scoreboard. The BCCh has released two CBDC reports (2022 and 2024), showing a central bank favoring purposeful architecture over headline-grabbing experiments.
The CMF is implementing a regulatory plan for the period 2025-2026 and has been implementing Open Finance rules since 2024. These are the legal rules that enable secure, interoperable data exchange and, by extension, new products.
None of that screams ‘legal tender’.
And politics? Kast’s victory, praised by regional conservatives and followed by an early bilateral deal with Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei, sets a deregulatory tone.
But the Chilean system still directs change through institutions. Markets rallied on the outcome, Congress remains divided and the first 100 days will be determined by what the administration can push through the legislative mill, rather than sweeping monetary experiments.
For those invested in the future of crypto in Chile, Di Bartolomeo’s advice is refreshingly testable. The first hints will likely be signups for local Bitcoin ETFs or ETNs and, in quick succession, banks signaling their intent with custody and basic buying and selling capabilities.
He states that this is not about theater, but about making normal driveways possible:
“A strong signal for wider adoption would be banks offering Bitcoin-related services or products, or policy discussions about updating bank policies to enable this.”
He believes this shift could normalize ownership and transactions on the ground without ambiguity. From there, the attention shifts to pensions.
Any circular that broadens the menu of eligible assets, or even clarifies valuation and custody standards for digital assets, would open the door to small, testable areas of exposure within Chile’s largest capital pools, especially if domestic packaging makes access operationally simple.
In retail and commerce, a narrowly defined tax credit would encourage experimentation without forcing it. Di Bartolomeo points to de minimis-style exemptions for small payments already discussed in the US as a model Chile could adopt to let people use and receive bitcoin for payments.
He also marks stablecoins as a live policy tool:
“I would also look at policies around the use of USD-pegged stablecoins such as Tether, as these are increasingly used as money in the region,” he says. A path that he believes could still lead users to Bitcoin over time.
Chile’s crypto future will likely not be decided on a stage, but in term sheets, rulebooks and surveillance audits. That’s not as viral as El Salvador’s legal tender rollout, but it’s a path that could scale.
As Di Bartolomeo puts it:
“I see no immediate reason to use Bitcoin as money in Chile.”
It will be the banks. If that happens, pensions could come later – and it wouldn’t take many basis points to move the needle.
