Foreign exchange rationing, digital dollar access and regulatory observability: evidence from Bolivia

Jonathan M. Fortún Vargas

Abstract

In June 2024 Bolivia repealed a prohibition on using electronic payment instruments for virtual asset operations amid foreign exchange rationing. We combine central bank platform surveillance, supervisory reporting, bank balance sheet records and monthly market data to examine digital dollar access and regulatory observability around the change. Tether purchases observed on a single platform rose from about US$7.5 million per month before the repeal to US$31.7 million in December 2024; supervised intermediaries reported Bs333 million of client virtual-asset operations in December 2024, rising to Bs694 million by June 2025; and client virtual assets in supervised bank custody reached Bs507 million by June 2026. In monthly data, lagged US-dollar-related search attention is unrelated to the parallel market premium before the authorization and negatively associated with it after; the association is stable in sign and magnitude across outcome constructions, while conventional significance weakens in trend- and source-consistent specifications, so we treat the regression as supporting evidence rather than a causal estimate. Argentina and Cambodia are adopted as boundary cases. The evidence suggests that foreign exchange stress and regulatory access jointly shape digital dollar activity, and that authorization can shift activity from ad hoc platform surveillance toward recurrent supervisory reporting.