Latin America Emerges as a Crypto Powerhouse Amid Volatile Growth

This submit is an excerpt from our 2025 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report. Reserve your copy now!

Latin America’s increasing crypto footprint

Between July 2022 and June 2025, Latin America recorded practically $1.5 trillion in cryptocurrency transaction quantity, establishing the area as one of the crucial dynamic on the planet. The trajectory has been risky however unmistakably upward: from $20.8 billion in crypto transaction quantity in July 2022, exercise surged to a report $87.7 billion in December 2024, with a number of months in late 2024 and early 2025 sustaining ranges above $60 billion.

Key development phases included:

• November 2022 and March 2023, when month-to-month totals jumped above $34 billion and $37 billion, respectively.
• Late 2023, which delivered a string of report highs, together with $46.3 billion in November and $45.1 billion in December.
• 2024 year-end, when volumes greater than doubled over the earlier yr’s peak, culminating within the $87.7 billion December high.

While volumes cooled barely within the first half of 2025, with figures moderating to $47.9 billion by June, the area stays on a considerably larger baseline than in 2022 or 2023, highlighting enduring momentum behind crypto adoption, regardless of short-term volatility.

This trajectory displays not solely industry-wide development in crypto adoption globally, but additionally Latin America’s distinctive financial context. As we now have famous in earlier years, the trifecta of persistent inflation, forex volatility, and restrictive capital controls throughout a number of nations within the area continues to drive demand for stablecoins as a protected retailer of worth and as a hedge towards native macroeconomic danger. At the identical time, the area’s place as a prime remittance hall has accelerated the demand for crypto to facilitate quicker and cheaper cross-border transfers.

The wider LATAM crypto ecosystem

Brazil dominates the LATAM area with $318.8 billion in crypto worth obtained, accounting for practically one-third of all LATAM crypto exercise. This dramatic enhance represents one of the crucial important development tales within the area, establishing Brazil as LATAM’s clear crypto chief.

Argentina ranks second regionally with $93.9 billion in transaction quantity, in line with traits noticed in our earlier Adoption Index. Mexico ($71.2 billion), Venezuela ($44.6 billion), and Colombia ($44.2 billion) spherical out the highest 5. Smaller markets such as Peru ($28.0 billion), Chile ($23.8 billion), and Bolivia ($14.8 billion) additionally play significant roles, whereas El Salvador, regardless of its well-known fondness for bitcoin, contributed extra modest volumes ($3.5 billion).

Centralized exchanges stay the dominant entry level for crypto throughout most areas, however Latin America stands out with 64% of exercise going down on CEXs, second solely to the MENA area (66%) and considerably larger than each North America (49%) and Europe (53%). This reliance on centralized platforms displays each accessibility and belief: for a lot of customers within the area, exchanges supply probably the most simple solution to purchase cryptocurrency, commerce crypto, and transfer cash throughout borders. Prominent native platforms such as Mercado Bitcoin (Brazil), Ripio (Argentina), Bitso (Mexico and Colombia), and SatoshiTango (Argentina) have turn into family names, constructing sturdy person bases by providing fiat on-ramps, remittance providers, and integrations with native fee techniques.

Brazil leads the LATAM area

Beyond main in complete transaction quantity, Brazil’s period-over-period development price of 109.9% underscores its place as the area’s most dynamic crypto market. This distinctive development trajectory stands in sharp distinction to different main LATAM markets, as proven within the chart beneath.

While crypto coverage and regulation in LATAM are likely to lag behind adoption, Brazil is one in all a number of nations which have already carried out significant crypto laws, together with its 2022/2023 Brazilian Virtual Assets Law (BVAL), which set necessities for crypto corporations (together with KYC and transaction reporting) and established the Banco de Brasil (BCB) as the related AML/CFT authority. In Brazil, there may be nonetheless enthusiasm to progress additional, suggesting that momentum will proceed at tempo with the discharge of a sequence of consultations (Nos. 109, 110, and 111/2024), from which guidelines are anticipated by the top of 2025.

The development within the Brazilian crypto economic system has been pushed largely by institutional and huge institutional transfers, each of which grew in extra of 100% period-over-period. But the info additionally recommend that Brazil’s development is broad-based, with meaningfully giant will increase for all switch sizes.

 

Stablecoin utilization surged considerably, with officers reporting that over 90% of Brazilian crypto flows are now stablecoin-related, underscoring their essential position in funds and cross-border transfers. This flourishing stablecoin market, mixed with rising transaction volumes, cements Brazil’s place as a regional development hub.

Institutional engagement with crypto, which we’ve tracked in earlier years, stays a very important driver of this development with most of the BCB’s previous regulatory selections serving to assist create the dynamic ecosystem into which bigger establishments can enter. Encouraged by this, conventional banks like Itau and neobanks such as Mercado Pago and Nubank have entered the house. As we transfer towards a extra regulated atmosphere by the top of 2025, we count on Brazil to take care of its central place, constructing on sturdy institutional curiosity. This trajectory depends upon hanging the correct regulatory steadiness to make sure retail exercise stays protected, well-supported, and engaging to individuals.

LATAM’s stablecoin and trade exercise

In fiat-to-crypto transactions, Brazil’s market management is much more pronounced, with the strongest period-over-period development in cryptocurrency purchases utilizing native forex. This contrasts with Argentina and Mexico, the place exercise has been comparatively secure, and Colombia, the place crypto purchases have extra notably ebbed and flowed.

Much of this trade exercise entails the buying of stablecoins. In the case of the Colombian Peso, the Argentine Peso, and the Brazilian Real, stablecoin purchases make up over half of all trade purchases between July of 2024 and the top of June 2025 (be aware that that is primarily based on order e-book knowledge included in CryptoExamine and is due to this fact not a complete view of all CEX exercise). The dominance of stablecoins in Latin America displays persistent inflation, forex volatility, and capital controls, which drive households and companies to hunt U.S. dollar-linked stability for financial savings, remittances, and commerce. In impact, stablecoins serve as a parallel monetary system, providing each a hedge and a sensible funds instrument the place native currencies usually fail to offer stability.

Looking forward, Latin America’s crypto ecosystem seems poised for continued development, pushed by the interaction of institutional adoption in markets like Brazil and protracted retail demand for stablecoins throughout the area. While every nation faces distinctive challenges and alternatives, the area’s total trajectory means that crypto, and notably stablecoins, has advanced past early adoption to turn into an integral a part of Latin America’s monetary panorama. As stablecoins proceed to serve as a essential hedge towards native forex volatility and an environment friendly technique of cross-border transfers, the important thing to sustaining this momentum will lie in hanging the correct steadiness between innovation and regulation, notably as extra nations observe Brazil’s lead in growing complete crypto frameworks.

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