Paraguay has reportedly recently paid for an Argentinian shipment worth little over $7,000 in bitcoin, the flagship cryptocurrency, in an apparent first for both countries. The deal was made as part of new program incentivizing small shipments.

According to Cointelegraph en Español, Argentina sold Paraguay pesticides and fumigation products, and paid for the products in BTC, which was then converted to Argentina’s fiat currency, the peso, to pay the agricultural chemicals’ exporter.

The transaction was completed with the help of Bitex, a Latin American financial services firm that supports bitcoin payments. Per the news outlet Bitex’s chief marketing officer, Manuel Beaudroit, revealed the company is part of Argentina’s “Exporta simple” program.

The program reportedly aims to facilitate the exportation of goods and services worth less than $15,000, and Bitex’s role in it is to try to make cross-border payments more efficient.

The deal is significant as the flagship cryptocurrency was used as an alternative to the legacy SWIFT payment network. Notably, the cryptocurrency scene has been growing Argentina, as the country ended 2018 with new cryptocurrency ATMs.

As CryptoGlobe covered, rising inflation that saw the Argentine peso fall 35% against the USD has seen bitcoin trading volume on the peer-to-peer exchange LocalBitcoins increase dramatically.

More recently Argentina’s transport system SUBE (Sistema Único de Boleto Electrónico) has recently started accepting bitcoin payments. The transport system is said to be used by over seven million people in 37 different locations.