in Cuba: a buying and selling quotation for the dollar, euro, and MLC calculated with a proprietary system that analyzes real-time market activity and updates several times a day.
Until now, our site has been offering as a reference the rate calculated by El Toque, a pioneering work that we recognize for its immense importance. Starting today, we take a further step and begin to publish our own calculation, with a system that we have developed from scratch.
We believe that, far from detracting, the existence of a new independent measurement strengthens the others: when different teams working separately, using different methods, arrive at similar figures, that coincidence confirms that the number is not dictated by anyone, but by the market itself.
We explain to you, in simple terms, how it works and why you can trust it.
Exchange Rate Evolution
The market is self-quoted in buying and selling groups
The informal price of currencies is determined by no one: it emerges from thousands of transactions between individuals. These buy and sell offers are published daily in dozens of Telegram and Facebook groups, where buyers and sellers announce their prices. Our system automatically reads these posts—thousands each day from a wide array of groups nationwide—and extracts the key information from each one: which currency is being offered, whether it is a buy or sell, and at what price in Cuban pesos.
Clean up the noise: out with frauds and spam
Not everything that is published is useful. In those groups, scams, sales of cards, transfers via Zelle or PayPal, cryptocurrencies, and posts unrelated to cash exchange on the street also circulate. Before calculating anything, the system discards all that "noise" and retains only the actual offers for cash currency exchange. It's the first filter and one of the most important: without it, the price would be distorted.
Let no one inflate the price: one seller, one vote
In these groups, it’s common for the same person to post their advertisement dozens of times a day. If we counted each post separately, a few very active users—or someone looking to manipulate the situation—could easily skew the price to their liking. To prevent this, we apply a simple rule: each seller is counted only once, regardless of how many times they post. This way, the price reflects the actual number of people involved, not who is shouting the loudest.
A representative value, not that of a standalone ad
With the offers thoroughly vetted, the system calculates a representative market value, rather than that of an isolated ad. To do this, it dismisses clearly atypical prices (those that ask much more or much less than the others) and gives more weight to the most recent offers, as the market fluctuates throughout the day. The result is a buying and selling quote that summarizes, in a single number, what is happening at that moment. And it is not calculated just once a day; it is updated several times daily to keep pace with market trends.
Transparency about its limits
No measurement is perfect, and we want to make that clear. Some currencies are traded much less than the dollar — the euro to a lesser extent, and especially the MLC, which is an exclusively digital currency — and with few transactions, the price is more volatile. When this happens, we notify that the value is indicative.
A number you can trust
The CiberCuba monitor was created with one objective: to ensure that no Cuban has to rely on rumors to know the value of their money. The existence of multiple independent measurements of the informal market today is not a weakness, but a guarantee: the more rigorous perspectives there are on the same phenomenon, the harder it is to distort it.
It is not an opinion or a rough estimate. It is the calculated and updated portrait several times a day of what thousands of Cubans are paying for their foreign currency.
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