Author: @BlazingKevin_, the Researcher at Movemaker

Latin America is undergoing a financial infrastructure revolution driven by currency failure. This article provides a panoramic analysis of the stablecoin market in the region based on macroeconomic data from 2024 to 2025, on-chain behavior analysis, and regulatory policy texts. The research finds that the Latin American market has surpassed the early passive dollarization phase and is undergoing a deep transformation towards Web3 financial infrastructure.

At the macro level, Argentina's 178% inflation rate and Brazil's $300 billion in crypto trading volume form a dual backdrop for stablecoins as survival and efficiency tools. At the micro level, the market is nurturing a new species—Crypto Neobank. Compared to traditional fintech giants like Nubank, Crypto Neobank is filling the significant gap between traditional banks and pure crypto speculation by utilizing zero-fee networks supported by Tether, such as Plasma, and DeFi yields. This report points out that the next alpha opportunity in the Latin American crypto market lies in how Web3 infrastructure can leverage this $1.5 trillion trading volume to replicate and surpass the growth miracles of traditional fintech.

1. Macro Narrative Reconstruction

To understand the uniqueness of the Latin American market, one must abandon the "technological innovation theory" from a North American or European perspective. In Latin America, the explosion of stablecoins is an inevitable product of structural macroeconomic imbalances. The core driving force here is survival and efficiency, and the intervention of Web3 technology is transforming this passive survival demand into an active financial upgrade.

1.1 Currency Failure and the Loss of Store of Value Function

Inflation is the strongest catalyst for the dollarization process in Latin America. Argentina and Venezuela are typical representatives of this phenomenon.

Despite the Milei government's implementation of radical economic therapies, Argentina's annual inflation rate remains as high as 178% from 2024 to 2025, with the peso depreciating by 51.6% against the dollar within 12 months. In this environment, stablecoins are no longer investment products but de facto units of account. On-chain data shows that stablecoin trading volume in Argentina accounts for as much as 61.8%, far exceeding the global average. The market's demand for stablecoins exhibits extremely high immediate price elasticity: whenever the exchange rate falls below a critical psychological threshold, monthly stablecoin purchases on exchanges surge to over $10 million.

In Venezuela, as the value of the bolívar continues to evaporate, Tether has permeated microeconomic activities such as supermarket shopping and real estate transactions. Data shows a strong negative correlation between the country's fiat exchange rate and the volume of cryptocurrency received, with stablecoins providing a parallel financial system unaffected by government monetary policy.

1.2 Banking Exclusion and the Financial Vacuum of 122 Million People

In addition to combating inflation, financial exclusion is another major pain point. There are 122 million adults in Latin America (26% of the total population) without bank accounts. This vast group is excluded from the traditional banking system due to minimum balance requirements, cumbersome compliance documentation, and geographical isolation.

This is the fertile ground for the rise of new banks. The success of Nubank proves this logic: through a branchless, low-fee mobile banking model, Nubank captured 122 million users in just ten years, achieving a market value of $70 billion and covering 60% of Brazil's adult population.

However, Crypto Neobank is performing a secondary upgrade to this logic. While Nubank addressed accessibility issues, its accounts are still primarily denominated in local fiat currency, and the savings yields often lag behind inflation. In contrast, Web3 new banks can offer dollar stablecoin-based accounts without needing a banking license and can provide annualized yields of 8% to 10% through DeFi protocol integration, which is extremely attractive to users in inflationary economies.

1.3 The Cost-Reduction and Efficiency Revolution of Remittance Economy

Latin America is one of the largest remittance recipients in the world, receiving over $160 billion in remittances annually. Traditional cross-border remittances typically charge fees of 5% to 6% and take several days to settle. This means nearly $10 billion in wealth is lost annually in the form of fees.

In the Mexico-U.S. corridor, the largest single remittance channel globally, Bitso has processed over $6.5 billion in remittances, accounting for 10%. Blockchain-based cross-border transfers can reduce costs to $1 or even a few cents, with settlement times shortened from 3 to 5 days to just seconds. This hundredfold increase in efficiency constitutes a dimensional blow to the traditional financial system.

2. Market Depth and On-Chain Behavior

Data from 2024 to 2025 indicates that Latin America has formed a unique Latin American model in cryptocurrency adoption: high frequency, large amounts, and high institutionalization.

2.1 Trading Volume and Growth Resilience

According to comprehensive data, from July 2022 to June 2025, Latin America recorded nearly $1.5 trillion in cryptocurrency trading volume, with a year-on-year growth of 42.5%. Notably, even during periods of global market volatility, Latin America's growth baseline remains solid. In December 2024, the region's monthly trading volume soared to a record $87.7 billion. This indicates that the growth of the Latin American market is not merely following the beta returns of global bull market cycles but is driven by endogenous demand logic.

2.2 Brazil's Institutional Hegemony and Argentina's Retail Frenzy

The market structures of various countries exhibit significant differences:

Brazil is the undisputed leader in the region, receiving approximately $318.8 billion in crypto assets, accounting for nearly one-third of the total in the area. Data from the Brazilian central bank astonishingly shows that about 90% of cryptocurrency funds flow through stablecoins. This extremely high proportion reveals the high institutionalization of the Brazilian market—stablecoins are primarily used for inter-company payments, cross-border settlements, and liquidity transfers, rather than retail speculation.

Argentina ranks second with a trading volume of approximately $91.1 billion to $93.9 billion. Unlike Brazil, Argentina's growth primarily comes from the retail end, reflecting the ordinary people's daily lifestyle of dollarizing crypto as a means to combat inflation.

2.3 Platform Preference: The Dominance of Centralized Exchanges

Latin American users heavily rely on centralized exchanges. Data shows that approximately 68.7% of trading activity occurs on centralized exchanges, the second-highest proportion globally.

This phenomenon has significant strategic implications for Web3 projects entering Latin America. Leveraging local exchanges like Mercado Bitcoin and Bitso, which have compliant fiat channels and deep user trust, Crypto Neobank should not attempt to compete directly with them in fiat deposit and withdrawal services but should penetrate their vast user base through collaboration.

3. Asset Evolution

The Latin American market presents a pattern of coexistence between globally recognized stablecoins and locally innovative assets, and is undergoing a generational leap from holding for value preservation to holding for value appreciation.

3.1 The Duopoly of Tether and USDC

With its first-mover advantage and deep liquidity, Tether remains the hard currency of the peer-to-peer market and informal economy in Latin America. In the over-the-counter markets of Venezuela and Argentina, Tether is the absolute unit of pricing. Brazilian tax data also shows that Tether accounts for about two-thirds of reported trading volume. Its censorship resistance and popularity make it the preferred choice for circumventing capital controls.

USDC is making inroads through compliant pathways. Partnerships with giants like Circle, Mercado Pago, and Bitso have made it the preferred choice for institutional settlements. A Bitso report indicates that by the end of 2024, USDC had become the platform's most purchased asset, accounting for 24%, surpassing Bitcoin.

3.2 The Bridging Role of Local Fiat Stablecoins

From 2024 to 2025, stablecoins pegged to local Latin American currencies began to emerge, aiming to address the friction between local payment systems and blockchain.

The launch of Meli Dólar by e-commerce giant Mercado Libre in Brazil is a milestone event. Through Mercado Pago, it has been embedded into the daily shopping of millions of users as a cashback vehicle, significantly lowering the user threshold. Additionally, stablecoins pegged to the peso and real issued by Num Finance primarily serve cross-exchange arbitrage and enterprise-level DeFi operations, helping local businesses manage liquidity on-chain without bearing exchange rate risks.

3.3 Trend Shift: Yield-Generating Assets and DeFi Integration

This represents the next alpha opportunity in the Latin American market. Traditional banks in Latin America typically offer very low interest rates on dollar accounts. In contrast, Web3 new banks are redefining savings by integrating DeFi protocols.

For example, EtherFi, as a DeFi protocol, has launched credit card products utilizing its billions of dollars in total locked value. Users can earn yields by collateralizing crypto assets while spending with the card. This model allows users to consume through borrowing without selling assets, retaining exposure to asset appreciation while solving liquidity issues.

In high-inflation countries, synthetic dollar stablecoins like USDe offering 10% to 15% native yields are extremely attractive. Compared to the real deposits offered by Nubank, the 10% annualized yield based on dollars is a dimensional blow to traditional savings products.

4. Differences in National Directions

The political and economic environments of Latin American countries vary greatly, leading to entirely different development paths for stablecoins.

4.1 Brazil: A Duet of Compliance and Innovation

Brazil is the most mature and compliant market in Latin America. The Brazilian central bank's digital currency project Drex faced a strategic adjustment in 2025, shifting its focus to the wholesale end, leaving a vast retail market space for private stablecoins.

In the same year, Brazil implemented a unified crypto tax rate and clarified the foreign exchange regulatory status of stablecoins. While this increased costs, it also conferred legitimacy to the industry. The local innovation project Neobankless exemplifies this trend. Built on Solana, it completely abstracts the complexity of blockchain at the front end, directly integrating with Brazil's national payment system PIX. Users deposit reais, which are automatically converted to USDC for earning interest in the background. This "Web2 experience, Web3 backend" model directly challenges the user habits of traditional fintech.

4.2 Argentina: A Liberalization Testing Ground

The virtual asset service provider registration system established by the Milei government, while increasing compliance thresholds, effectively tacitly acknowledges the competitive status of dollar stablecoins. The asset regularization plan has also brought many gray market stablecoins to the surface.

Lemon Cash addresses the "last mile" payment issue by issuing crypto debit cards. Users hold USDC to earn yields, converting it to pesos only at the moment of swiping the card. This model is highly sticky in high-inflation environments as it minimizes the time spent holding fiat currency.

4.3 Mexico and Venezuela: Polarization

In Mexico, due to the "Fintech Law" and central bank restrictions, a pattern of isolation between banks and crypto companies has formed. Companies like Bitso have thus developed their enterprise-to-enterprise business, using stablecoins as an intermediary bridge to optimize cross-border fund transfers between the U.S. and Mexico, bypassing the inefficiencies of the traditional banking system.

In Venezuela, under the backdrop of restored sanctions, Tether has even become a settlement tool for oil exports. Meanwhile, in the grassroots, Binance's peer-to-peer trading remains a lifeline for obtaining foreign exchange, with the market decisively voting with its feet for private dollar stablecoins over the failed official oil currency.

5. From Traditional Finance to Crypto Neobank

The Latin American market is undergoing a critical turning point from traditional fintech to Crypto Neobank. This is not only a technological upgrade but also a generational leap in business models.

5.1 Valuation Gap and Alpha Opportunity

Currently, Nubank has a market value of about $70 billion, and Revolut is valued at $75 billion, validating the commercial viability of digital banking in Latin America. In contrast, the entire Web3 new banking sector has a combined valuation of less than $5 billion, merely 7% of Nubank's market value.

This represents a significant value gap. If Crypto Neobank can capture even 10% of Nubank's market share, leveraging a superior unit economic model, its valuation could see an increase of 10 to 30 times.

5.2 Next-Generation Infrastructure: The Zero-Fee Revolution

One of the biggest obstacles to the widespread adoption of crypto payments is fuel fees. Plasma and its flagship product Plasma One have brought breakthroughs. As a blockchain officially supported by Tether, Plasma achieves zero fuel fees for Tether transfers. This eliminates the largest psychological and economic barriers for users using cryptocurrency for payments.

Data showing that total locked value surpassed $5 billion within 20 days of launch proves that when infrastructure directly provides bank-level services, the speed of capital inflow is astonishing. This "infrastructure + new banking" vertical integration model may become mainstream in the future.

5.3 Dimensional Blow to Business Models

Crypto Neobank has threefold moats compared to traditional banks:

Settlement Speed: Reduced from 3 to 5 days with SWIFT to seconds on the blockchain.

Account Currency: Upgraded from depreciating local fiat to inflation-resistant dollar stablecoins.

Source of Income: Transitioned from earning interest rate spreads to allowing users to share the native yields of DeFi protocols.

For Latin American users, this is not only a better experience but also a pressing need for asset preservation.

6. Challenges, Strategies, and Future Predictions

6.1 Challenges and Breakthrough Strategies

Despite the bright prospects, incidents of banks closing crypto business accounts due to compliance fears still occur in Mexico and Colombia. Additionally, regulatory fragmentation in Latin America leads to extremely high compliance costs for cross-border operations.

For the Latin American market, Web3 projects need to follow a specific winning script:

Brazil First: Given that Brazil accounts for 31% of Latin America's crypto trading volume and has a well-developed payment system, it must be prioritized as the primary battlefield.

Niche First: Do not attempt to be a bank for everyone from the start. The successful path is to first capture a segmented community and then expand.

Viral Marketing: 90% of Nubank's growth comes from word of mouth. Crypto Neobank should leverage on-chain incentives to achieve low-cost viral growth on social networks like WhatsApp.

6.2 Market Predictions

Based on the above analysis, we make the following predictions for the development of stablecoins in the medium to short term:

Private stablecoins will replace central bank digital currencies: Given Brazil's retreat of Drex at the retail end, privately issued compliant stablecoins will effectively take on the role of digital fiat currency.

Yield-generating assets will become mainstream: Stablecoins that do not generate interest may face competition from yield-generating assets like tokenized U.S. Treasuries. Latin American users will increasingly prefer to hold assets that can resist inflation and generate yields.

Market Segmentation: The market will split into two camps: one is a highly compliant, bank-integrated whitelist market, and the other is a gradually shrinking but still existing gray peer-to-peer market.

Conclusion

The stablecoin market in Latin America is a cutting-edge experimental ground for global fintech. Here, stablecoins are not just a technological enhancement but a necessity. From the digital lifebuoys in the hands of Argentinians to the cross-border settlement tools in the hands of Brazilian financial giants, stablecoins are reshaping the financial veins of this continent.

With the rollout of regulatory frameworks in 2025 and the rise of new Crypto Neobank species, Latin America is expected to become the first region in the world to achieve large-scale commercialization of stablecoins. For investors, the current opportunity window is only 12 to 18 months; whoever can replicate Nubank's user experience using Web3 tracks before 2026 will become the next $100 billion giant. The race has begun, and Latin America is that untapped gold mine.

About Movemaker

Movemaker is the first official community organization authorized by the Aptos Foundation and jointly initiated by Ankaa and BlockBooster, focusing on promoting the construction and development of the Aptos ecosystem in the Chinese-speaking region. As the official representative of Aptos in the Chinese-speaking area, Movemaker is committed to building a diverse, open, and prosperous Aptos ecosystem by connecting developers, users, capital, and numerous ecological partners.

Disclaimer:

This article/blog is for reference only, representing the author's personal views and does not represent the position of Movemaker. This article does not intend to provide: (i) investment advice or recommendations; (ii) offers or solicitations to buy, sell, or hold digital assets; or (iii) financial, accounting, legal, or tax advice. Holding digital assets, including stablecoins and NFTs, carries high risks, significant price volatility, and may even become worthless. You should carefully consider whether trading or holding digital assets is suitable for you based on your financial situation. For specific issues, please consult your legal, tax, or investment advisor. The information provided in this article (including market data and statistics, if any) is for general reference only. Reasonable care has been taken in compiling this data and charts, but no responsibility is accepted for any factual errors or omissions expressed therein.