# Artificial intelligence in Cuba's informal currency market

Author: Alejandro Ulloa García
Original publication: 2025-07-02
Spanish original: https://estrategiabyaleph.substack.com/p/estrategia-92-el-bot-que-le-pone
English URL: https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/essays/092/
Status: Published translation

This is a translation of the original Spanish essay published on 2 July 2025. Its claims, examples and forecasts retain that historical context.

English publication: 2026-09-29

> This week we bring you a rather special article — and, we should say at the outset, a somewhat complex one, given the subject — about a fascinating use of artificial intelligence: establishing a reference rate for Cuba's informal currency market, known as the TRMI. [Alejandro Ulloa García](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandroulloa/), Head of Audiovisual Production at [elTOQUE.com](http://eltoque.com), [one of the leading media outlets covering Cuban affairs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxRGXpzjgtY), gives us a first-hand account of how the TRMI was created and how AI listens to forums and social networks to establish accurate exchange rates for everyday use in Cuba.



*Archive note: the exchange rates, institutional arrangements and assessments below belong to the article's June–July 2025 context. Quotations in the body are translated from the Spanish source; the journal abstract reproduced with its screenshot is the original English visible there. The source's differing references to official rates of 24 and 25 CUP per dollar are retained, as are differing CAD figures in its screenshots.*



**In totalitarian environments such as Cuba's**, where information is tightly controlled, citizens' social and political rights are not the only casualties: **economic actors also fail to receive the signals they need from their surroundings to function organically**. Providing reliable, verifiable information in any field is therefore not only a journalistic mission but a grave offence in Cuba.



**This article examines the use of AI by the independent Cuban outlet [elTOQUE.com](http://eltoque.com) to [monitor the country's informal foreign exchange market in real time](https://eltoque.com/tasas-de-cambio-de-moneda-en-cuba-hoy), in the absence of official public monitoring and information about actual exchange rates.**



[![Historical elTOQUE reference exchange rates on 27 June 2025.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/6eff7780-a98d-4823-adea-9322ce2608c9_1600x1394.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!w3rY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6eff7780-a98d-4823-adea-9322ce2608c9_1600x1394.png)



*English transcription of the graphic: “Representative rate of Cuba's informal foreign exchange market”, set at 7 a.m. Cuba time on 27 June 2025 and valid that day. MLC is labelled “USD held in a bank account”; Zelle is labelled “USD transferred within the United States”.*



| Unit | CUP | MLC | USD | Change marked in CUP |

| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |

| 1 EUR | 420.00 | 1.62 | 1.11 | None |

| 1 USD | 380.00 | 1.46 | — | None |

| 1 MLC | 260.00 | — | 0.68 | None |

| 1 CAD | 265.00 | 1.00 | 0.68 | +5 |

| 1 MXN | 19.00 | 0.07 | 0.05 | −1 |

| 1 Zelle | 390.00 | 1.50 | 1.03 | +13 |



## General context



**Cuba's political, social and economic crisis has worsened rapidly over the past five years.** The systemic failure represented by the centralised socialist planning model of the Communist Party of Cuba — the country's only legal party — combined with the regime's failed policies and the impact of US sanctions, has produced, among other consequences, **a sharp devaluation of the Cuban peso and inflation officially calculated in double digits, but [put in triple digits by independent economists](https://revistas.usergioarboleda.edu.co/index.php/fc_divul/article/view/3038/2541).**



Pavel Vidal, who holds a doctorate in economics and teaches at Javeriana University in Cali, [has said of this](https://revistas.usergioarboleda.edu.co/index.php/fc_divul/article/view/3038/2541):



> Exchange-rate instability has been another visible reflection of the crisis: the constant depreciation of the Cuban peso in the informal market and growing partial dollarisation, including in its institutional form, are fragmenting the business fabric and widening the gaps between actors with and without access to foreign currency. The crisis is not the result of a temporary shock and is not solely due to sanctions, but to prolonged imbalances and distortions in macroeconomic fundamentals.



**One important fact in understanding Cuba's exchange-rate instability is that, for roughly 20 years, until 2020, the country had multiple currencies and exchange rates.** Alongside the Cuban peso (CUP), the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) circulated at an artificial one-to-one parity with the US dollar (USD). There was also a dual exchange-rate system: one dollar price for the population, 25 CUP = 1 CUC = 1 USD, and another for state enterprises, 1 CUP = 1 CUC = 1 USD. For years, these distortions discouraged exports, encouraged imports and limited the purchasing power of real wages, paid in CUP, which averaged around USD 20 a month nationally at the official exchange rate.



Despite these distortions, the state controlled the exchange rate through heavy subsidies to enterprises that did not generate foreign currency, including basic services such as electricity, gas, water and healthcare. This was made possible by political agreements with regional allies such as Venezuela, which supplied large quantities of oil in exchange for doctors and teachers sent by Cuba, and by tourism, which brought fresh foreign currency into the economy.



However, Venezuela's crisis, measures during Donald Trump's first term that restricted US tourism, the government's misguided investment policies, the business system's limited ability to respond to internal and external changes, and the Covid-19 pandemic, [among other factors](https://cri.fiu.edu/_assets/docs/cuba-economic-crisis.pdf), have plunged the country into crisis.



**In an attempt to escape it, in October 2020, amid the pandemic, closed borders and a worsening food crisis, the regime announced a long-postponed measure: [monetary and exchange-rate unification](https://eltoque.com/es/la-tarea-ordenamiento-en-15-puntos), together with a comprehensive reform of wages and pensions, implemented from 1 January 2021.** However, shortages of foreign currency for travel, purchasing supplies abroad and accessing state shops trading in freely convertible currency — stocked with basic necessities unavailable in the Cuban-peso retail network — had caused the peso to depreciate systematically in the informal market. It moved from the official rate of 24 to one to [between 30 and 45 pesos per dollar in December 2020](https://horizontecubano.law.columbia.edu/news/choque-monetario-e-inflacion-despues-de-la-devaluacion-del-peso-cubano-en-enero-de-2021).



The adverse conditions in which the measure, known as *Tarea Ordenamiento Monetario*, began to be implemented; the absence of systemic change; the food crisis caused by underinvestment in agriculture; and the poor sequencing of the reorganisation, [among other reasons](https://eltoque.com/es/por-que-la-tarea-ordenamiento-habia-fracasado-antes-de-comenzar), both internal and external, which the authorities had failed to consider in its design, drove the country deeper into crisis. A fiscal deficit of 18.3% of GDP in 2021 was financed through [uncontrolled money creation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBF4WrqXX40) to fund wage and pension increases in the state sector, the country's largest employer.



## The exchange-rate context



Alongside abolishing the CUC, the central element of Cuba's reorganisation was to devalue the CUP in the state enterprise system, bringing it into line with the population's rate of 24 CUP per USD. This was a fixed rate disconnected from both the informal market and the country's economic reality. It was compounded by the increasing scarcity, and eventual cessation, of foreign-currency sales at banks and exchange bureaux, all state-owned.



[![Chart of informal USD, EUR and MLC rates in Cuban pesos.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/c0c12568-d219-4610-8aa9-86c5a81816ff_1239x782.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!TcRk!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc0c12568-d219-4610-8aa9-86c5a81816ff_1239x782.png)



*English reading of the chart: “Changes in the price of foreign currencies, in CUP, in the informal market”. USD is blue, EUR red and MLC green. The displayed date selector runs from 1 July 2020 to 27 June 2025; the plotted series begins around January 2021. The labelled points are USD 395, MLC 310 and EUR 420 CUP. The lines show a sustained rise, sharp fluctuations around 2024 and a later divergence, with MLC below USD and EUR. Values are preserved as plotted; the labelled points do not all represent the same date.*



**In these circumstances, exchange-rate information moved from Cuban banks' websites and noticeboards to social networks and classified-ad sites. Individuals, including business owners, went there to buy and sell dollars, euros and other currencies, including a virtual one called MLC — Moneda Libremente Convertible, or freely convertible currency — created by the government itself months before the reorganisation began and still not abolished.**



**Finding out currency prices meant accessing dozens of groups on Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp, as well as various websites, to find a seller or buyer with whom prices might then be negotiated.** This dispersal of exchange-market data, as happens in such markets, generated intense speculation and large price differences even within a single city. Among other effects, it distorted the economic signals reaching the emerging private-sector actors established in the country a few years earlier. They could obtain wholesale and imported supplies only in foreign currency, yet had to set prices in Cuban pesos, as required by law, at levels that covered costs and generated enough profit to replenish their stocks.



**Faced with this national reality, the independent outlet elTOQUE concluded that it had the in-house capacity to analyse supply-and-demand data published on social networks and websites, and use it to establish a reference rate for the informal foreign exchange market — the TRMI — to guide citizens and economic actors alike.**



## Methodology and impacts



**The first thing to say about the TRMI is that it has been so effective that elTOQUE is now the undisputed reference for foreign-currency prices in Cuba. This is validated not only by the population's systematic use of the service but also by academic journals such as [Applied Economics](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00036846.2024.2416091#abstract).** [Readers wanting technical details of the AI system used for the TRMI can find a thorough account there](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00036846.2024.2416091#d1e1809). This has also earned the outlet various accusations from the Cuban government and its propaganda media: that it manipulates the Cuban economy and forms part of a third-generation war against the country.



[![Applied Economics article about AI in Cuba's informal currency market.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/663119d2-1e64-4ed9-af9b-5d40d1f12ad8_1600x1403.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!8y2e!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F663119d2-1e64-4ed9-af9b-5d40d1f12ad8_1600x1403.png)



*The screenshot identifies the research article “Using AI in the informal currency market: evidence from Cuba”, by Pavel Vidal, Carlos Enrique Muñiz Cuza and Abraham Calas Torres, published online on 29 October 2024 in Applied Economics, DOI 10.1080/00036846.2024.2416091. Its visible abstract reads:*



> This article explains the various steps of a novel methodology designed to analyse the informal currency market and calculate a parallel exchange rate (ER). We utilize artificial intelligence algorithms for Natural Language Processing to extract data from social network groups and classified websites. The methodology has been implemented since 2021 amidst Cuba's complex financial and political landscape. Given that the official exchange rate remains fixed and overvalued, the calculated ER has become vital for assessing the real-time effects of regulatory changes, economic shocks, and policies. We conduct a statistical and econometric analysis using vector autoregressive models and spillover indexes to validate the economic and financial consistency of the informal market’s time series.



*Keywords shown: foreign exchange market; parallel exchange rate; artificial intelligence; natural language processing.*



In an article published in [Applied Economics](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00036846.2024.2416091#abstract), the methodology's developers, economist Pavel Vidal Alejandro and computer scientist Abraham Calas Torres, argue:



> Because of the market's informal nature, information collection relies on observing prices in virtual spaces, since there is no recorded documentation of actual transactions. The TRMI uses the median of buying and selling intentions — supply/demand observations — in virtual spaces as a reference point for capturing the market's central consensus.



**Information is collected by bots that use artificial intelligence techniques to process users' buying and selling messages on social networks and websites.** These messages, which include buying and/or selling prices for dollars, euros, MLC and cryptocurrencies, are stored in a database alongside metadata such as “the date of the advertisement, its origin and its territory, if identifiable. Values and currency types are extracted by analysing the syntactic relationships within the sentences users write on digital platforms. This entire process is automated and requires no human intervention.” The quantities offered or sought are also recorded to establish market volume, which is used to make econometric estimates of the rate. If supply is plentiful and demand weak, for example, prices usually fall, and vice versa.



[![Seven anonymised currency listings dated 27 June 2025.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/1bad547a-ad70-4853-8101-58284ae0ba3f_1439x890.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!LMqH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1bad547a-ad70-4853-8101-58284ae0ba3f_1439x890.png)



*English transcription of the seven visible listings, dated 27 June 2025. Contact details are masked in the original:*



- **Sell, 5:54:37 a.m.:** “I have MLC at 255; interested parties contact [masked]. I sell from 100 upwards.”

- **Buy, 4:58:40 a.m.:** “I buy USD at 380. I buy euros at 410. Immediate home delivery. I pay in thousand-peso notes. Call or write to [masked] or [masked].”

- **Buy, 4:58:40 a.m.:** The same offer appears a second time in the screenshot.

- **Sell, 2:35:22 a.m.:** “I sell 40 USD at 380.”

- **Sell, 1:29:37 a.m.:** “I sell USD at 387”, repeated three times with heart emojis.

- **Buy, 12:44:21 a.m.:** “I buy USD at 382”, with alarm emojis.

- **Sell, 12:27:55 a.m.:** “I buy one-dollar notes at 360 or give MLC at 1.35. I have MLC at 270 or exchange for cash USD at 1.40.” The listing's “Sell” category is retained despite its mixed wording.



*(Image captured on 27 June showing messages processed that day by the AI tool, gathered from various social networks, messaging applications and websites: [https://eltoque.com/tasas-de-cambio-de-moneda-en-cuba-hoy#otras-tasas](https://eltoque.com/tasas-de-cambio-de-moneda-en-cuba-hoy#otras-tasas).)*



**According to Abraham Calas in Applied Economics:**



> The process uses the Freeling tool for syntactic and semantic analysis of messages (...) [providing] part-of-speech (PoS) tagging and the construction of semantic dependency trees for Spanish. PoS tagging assigns grammatical categories to each word in a sentence, while semantic dependency trees map those words' relationships and functions to understand their collective meaning.



**Once the data has been extracted, the algorithm assigns each user a code, anonymising buyers and sellers. When a user's code is detected in other offer messages, only one message from that user is recorded, preventing duplicate messages intended to manipulate the rate from entering the dataset.**



**An important feature of the TRMI is its use of the median** to estimate daily foreign-currency buying and selling prices.



Pavel Vidal [explains on elTOQUE](https://eltoque.com/preguntas-y-respuestas-sobre-las-tasas-de-cambio):



> The median is chosen because it is much more robust to extreme or unusual values than the mean or average. In a highly dispersed market with little regulation, where buying and selling offers can differ considerably — as in Cuba's social-media spaces — the mean can be distorted by a small number of transactions at very high or low rates. The median, by contrast, reflects the informal market's central point more faithfully and consistently.



[Another elTOQUE article](https://eltoque.com/es/metodologia-de-la-tasa-representativa-del-mercado-informal-de-eltoque) adds:



> **To avoid anomalies and distortions, the algorithm ignores offers with outlying values. These are values more than two standard deviations above or below the median. This is the usual criterion for identifying outliers in calculations of this kind.**



Because of its effectiveness, and the way it exposes the country's economic and monetary collapse every day, the TRMI has been attacked by all the Cuban regime's propaganda organs. On 20 December 2023, [Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz](https://www.parlamentocubano.gob.cu/noticias/proyecciones-de-gobierno-para-corregir-distorsiones-y-reimpulsar-la-economia-durante-el) told Cuba's parliament:



> We have to put an end to someone in a foreign country, using a computer, projecting what exchange rate will govern this country. That has to stop! And that entirely speculative exchange rate is then taken as the reference for setting all the abusive prices we see in the domestic market today.



A blog attributed to the state's intelligence and security organs, which frequently attacks and defames independent journalists, artists and activists, has also devoted numerous posts to criticising elTOQUE's methodology. [One stated](https://razonesdecuba.cu/la-historia-no-contada-detras-de-los-operadores-del-toque-razones-para-contarlas/):



> el Toque is a front for the economic war that the US government has waged against the Cuban people for more than six decades.



Yet, despite [announcements of a floating exchange rate](https://www.martinoticias.com/a/cuba-establecera-nueva-tasa-de-cambio-de-moneda-en-2025/406158.html), neither the Central Bank nor the government has implemented any measure to bring official clarity to Cuba's foreign exchange market. The official rate remains 25 CUP per USD, although since mid-2022 individuals [have been able to buy dollars at state exchange bureaux for 120 CUP per USD](https://www.mfp.gob.cu/noticia/790), with a daily purchase limit of USD 100. When announced, that rate was even higher than the one calculated by elTOQUE's TRMI, but it soon fell behind. **As of 27 June 2025, the dollar trades at 380 Cuban pesos in the informal market.**



[![Announcement of the elTOQUE exchange-rate mobile app.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/0e6a5c95-0c48-4b7e-8dd9-12afa7247b66_873x512.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!s4W5!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0e6a5c95-0c48-4b7e-8dd9-12afa7247b66_873x512.png)



*Original app announcement, translated: “elTOQUE Rates. New mobile application. Real-time exchange rates, calculators, API access and other features.” Google Play, elTOQUE and the stylised OllFi logo appear below.*



**Given Cuba's slow internet connections and frequent disconnections, [elTOQUE developed a mobile application, launched in September 2023](https://eltoque.com/eltoque-lanza-aplicacion-movil-para-consultar-tasas-del-mercado-cambiario-en-cuba). It made using the exchange rates simpler and more flexible, giving users easier access to the information.**



[![Mobile app displaying historical informal exchange rates.](https://elcontemplador.github.io/estrategia-english/assets/images/ac2fcb52-2eca-4633-b364-c0dfb9f84e51_751x1600.png)](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!6MKw!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fac2fcb52-2eca-4633-b364-c0dfb9f84e51_751x1600.png)



*English reading of the app screenshot: “Informal foreign exchange market in Cuba (real time)”. It displays 1 EUR = 420.00 CUP; 1 USD = 380.00 CUP; 1 MLC = 260.00 CUP; 1 CAD = 264.00 CUP, up 2.5; 1 MXN = 19.00 CUP, down 1; and 1 Zelle = 390.00 CUP, up 13. Tabs distinguish the informal, formal and cryptocurrency markets. The CAD value differs from the opening graphic and is retained as displayed; these are historical screenshots.*



A commitment to a complex, changing reality, together with ethics and honesty demonstrated over years, keeps elTOQUE **providing this public-service information to Cuban citizens**. It consistently ignores calls from both ends of the political spectrum to manipulate the rate upwards or downwards, while always stressing **the need to maintain security layers around the algorithm and econometric analysis of the state of the national foreign exchange market.**



**[Alejandro Ulloa García](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandroulloa/)**



*Master's degree in Audiovisual Communication; Head of Audiovisual Production at [elTOQUE.com](https://youtu.be/pxRGXpzjgtY?si=66JpztfNRumumd2n)*