The independent media outlet elToque, which documents the ups and downs of currency values in the informal market, reported today that it has reinforced controls to calculate the representative rate, amid growing suspicion of attempts to inflate or crash values with false announcements.
ElToque started by referring to a campaign by "government actors associated with State Security and propagandistic spokespersons of the Communist Party" who since April have tried to delegitimize that media outlet and the methodology they use to calculate the rate.
Campaign to which, according to reports, "private sector actors have joined who claim to have the ability to coordinate to promote the appreciation of the Cuban peso."
It would seem that this is the intention, to generate enough noise so that the spaces where the informal currency exchange market has been established - as a solution to the Cuban State's inaction in exchange rate policy - cease to be credible and functional," laments the independent media.
ElToque claims to have "evidence of actions aimed at flooding virtual currency trading spaces with fake offers in order to influence the algorithm they use to calculate the rate."
"Until now, they have not succeeded because the security filters we have designed have managed to keep our data consistent with the actual market movements. If the price of currencies falls or rises, it is because the set of buyers and sellers who actually exchange currencies follow that behavior," they add.
The independent media outlet says that from the beginning they have been "transparent" and that they are aware of the limitations of their method, limitations that are fundamentally that they do not know which of the buying and selling ads they document end up materializing.
However, they argue that the calculated rate reflects the central movements of the informal market, although they admit that "it is a speculative market by nature."
"Volatility increases with the lack of reliable information and due to the lack of coherent policies from the Cuban State, the only actor that has true corrective influence," they criticize.
For this reason, faced with the avalanche of new users who openly declare they are posting fictitious values to influence market sentiment, it has decided to "apply a temporary filter" to its calculation method.
The purpose is to exclude from the daily sample users who have posted offers for the first time after April 1, 2024, a date taken as a reference due to the month in which instability worsened and "conspiracies" began to be made public.
ElToque says that faced with "the concern that may arise from the activation of 'cyber fighters' networks and the uncontrolled greed of speculators who are pushing to maximize their profits," they prefer to add an extra layer of security.
Another precautionary measure is that they will not take into account values that are "clearly exaggerated and far from the average."
They warn that they are implementing lists where they register users with clearly manipulative or spam-like behavior. Such users "will be automatically and permanently excluded from data collection," they warn.
The independent media -located at the center of the controversy for several weeks- argues that "the informal foreign exchange market has become a necessary entity for the operation of the private sector economy, for families, for the flow of remittances, and for tourism because the official market is not functional."
They insist that it is not determined by voluntarism or campaigns and believe that false offers will not permanently change the direction of the exchange rate, but they do have the potential to add more volatility and confusion, which could further deteriorate the precarious existing situation.
Neither the informal exchange market nor a service that makes it visible are the cause of the problems, in any case, they are a reflection of the imbalances and inflation affecting the Cuban economy. The solution lies in the hands of the State and those governing the country, as they are the only ones with the institutional capacity to implement economic-fiscal and monetary policy in the form of a macroeconomic stabilization program that includes structural reforms," they conclude.
Record recovery of foreign currencies
After a drop in the average sales values that lasted almost three weeks, euros, dollars, and MLC consolidated their recovery for the third consecutive day this Friday.
The price of currencies continues to soar in the informal Cuban market and shows signs of rising at a faster pace than they collapsed.
The dollar rose by 30 pesos to reach 350 CUP. The euro, on the other hand, increased by 20 pesos and is at 355, only five pesos above the US currency.
In the case of the Freely Convertible Currency (MLC), it increased by 10 pesos and its average selling price is now 280 CUP.
The supersonic recovery of currencies has generated hundreds, thousands of opinions in the last 48 hours, covering a wide spectrum: from those who beat their chests for not having sold and having known how to wait, to those who say "THAT'S A LIE," and assert that the actual sale values of the currencies are moving apart from the prices documented by elToque.
The conspiracy theories that accuse elToque of "counter-revolution" are joined by microenterprises organizing campaigns to control the situation, another group that accuses the UCI of strange maneuvers, and those who mock both sides.
What do you think?
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