Executive summary

Across Latin America, crypto has evolved into a practical financial tool, used to save, send, and spend in everyday life. In a region shaped by inflation, currency volatility, and limited access to traditional banking, millions turn to crypto out of necessity, not speculation. This report focuses on the most urgent and impactful layer of adoption: crypto as payment.

To navigate the region’s diversity, we frame our analysis around four pillars: exchanges, stablecoins, on-/off-ramps, and payment apps. Together, these form the infrastructure enabling real-world use, such as remittances, salaries, savings, and payments. Working closely with projects, we prioritized onchain, verifiable data via Dune dashboards, bringing visibility to the builders driving adoption.

While not exhaustive, this report is a first step toward a shared, transparent, data-backed view of crypto usage across Latin America. As the State of the Crypto Industry 2024 report by Lemon Cash illustrates, the region is large, fast-moving, and under-mapped, with usage patterns that vary sharply by country, from institutional flows and speculative retail in Brazil, to remittance-driven activity in Mexico, to heavy reliance on stablecoins in Venezuela and Argentina as a hedge against inflation. This diversity is why we focus on shared, practical use cases rather than treating Latin America as a single market.

This report also sets the stage for DuneCon 2025 in Buenos Aires this November, a full-day gathering of the LATAM crypto and data community, where many of the builders and projects featured here are expected to attend and connect with peers from across the region.

Report quotes: 

“This report is truly groundbreaking both by its breadth and depth. It's the first time we have seen an aggregated set of data for Latin America's ecosystem backed by onchain data. The Dune team and other collaborators of the report have gone above and beyond and we hope this report serves as the cornerstone for crypto builders operating in the region.”

‍– Cush, Founder of Odisea. 

“Clear, credible, and overdue—this report puts numbers to LATAM’s reality: crypto as background infrastructure, strong demand in payments and savings, and a community that backs builders.
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Crypto is built for emerging markets, and LATAM is the clearest proof: it solves real problems, passionate communities rally behind builders, and demand in payments and savings is strong. The region still needs a regulatory-safe tech hub to anchor crypto and AI startups, and builders must look beyond local use cases—LATAM has the talent and networks to go global. Stablecoins (USDT/USDC) remain the store of value even as inflation eases in Argentina, and I expect more DeFi products that make stablecoin saving and payments feel “non-crypto.” Overall, crypto is becoming background infrastructure—the quiet engine powering real solutions.”

– Simón Puebla, Funding & BD Lead at Crecimiento

“This report shows that Ethereum and stablecoins are used at scale for saving, sending, and spending every day, with Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina leading an unprecedented adoption wave. This report backs that story with hard, onchain data, offering rare insights into how the LATAM crypto market actually works. With Devconnect in Argentina this November as the climax of many years of effort, it feels like the perfect moment to connect the region’s builders with the global Ethereum community.”

– Nathan, Devconnect Lead at Ethereum Foundation

“On-chain data about Latin America has historically been scarce — beyond valuable efforts by some exchanges mapping user behavior and generously sharing it. This report can be a cornerstone to bring the region closer to on-chain analysis: moving from intuition to data-driven strategies for onboarding and decision-making, and improving products and platforms.
I hope it also inspires more local observatories, researchers, and analysts to offer diverse perspectives, strengthen our own regional understanding, and help international actors grasp our realities. As a pre-Devconnect 2025 snapshot, it will be fascinating to contrast it in the future with new research and evolving data.”
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– Romina Sejas, Co Founder of ETH Kipu Foundation and Lead at ETH Latam

"Latin America is ground zero for crypto usage in 2025 and offers the template for expanding adoption globally. The Dune team has done a great service to the industry with this data-driven presentation of how individuals and businesses in this region are using real crypto products to meet their everyday financial needs."

– Aaron Stanley, Founder of Brazil Crypto Report

We are very excited to see this report, which focuses exclusively on LATAM. Payment apps and stablecoins are the region’s product-market fit, which has historically faced challenges of trust in the traditional financial system and economic crises. The report shows sectors that address these problems and highlights the region’s real potential. Millions of people are already trading cryptocurrencies, often seeking better opportunities, and studies like this demonstrate how blockchain and crypto provide concrete solutions.Beyond education, real adoption depends on more account abstraction apps with simple and intuitive UX. They can transform the user experience, allowing blockchain to function as an accessible, transparent, and efficient infrastructure that solves real problems.

– Bonis, Growth Leader at Modular Crypto

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Acknowledgments

This report would not have been possible without the generous support, insights, and collaboration of many individuals and communities across the Latin American crypto ecosystem.

Special thanks to Romina from ETH Latam for initiating this journey, sharing early leads, introductions, and invaluable context. To Joao from Picnic, for his help unpacking the Picnic x Gnosis Pay integration and for facilitating further industry connections. To Rex and Enti from Vista, for their sharp perspective on regional trends, a thoughtful overview of the LATAM landscape and their network of connections. To Rodrigo from Iporanga Ventures, for his pioneering work on local stablecoins adoption and Real-pegged assets. And to Alex Obchakevich from Obchakevich Research, whose leading-edge research into crypto payments and exchange activity on Polygon and multichain networks was instrumental to this report’s section on exchanges.

We’re also deeply grateful to vibrant communities like Espacio Cripto, Odisea, Brazil Crypto Report and Crecimiento, whose warm welcome and support energized this initiative.

Finally, heartfelt thanks to all the projects who took the time to speak with us, share data and context, and build dashboards on Dune, not only to support this report, but to help bring greater onchain transparency and insight to our shared communities.

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Methodology

This report is an exploratory, collaborative effort to surface key trends in Latin America’s crypto adoption, specifically the “crypto as payment” use case. Given the region’s diversity in countries, languages, economic contexts, and regulatory environments, it is not a comprehensive market map but a theme-based snapshot focused on real-world financial activity. While a more granular country-level analysis would be valuable, directly attributing onchain data to specific countries was not feasible; instead, we used LATAM-based exchanges and stablecoins as the best available proxy for LATAM user activity.

We prioritized projects that primarily serve LATAM users, rather than LATAM-based teams targeting a global audience, and that enable crypto usage in daily life (e.g., remittances, salaries, savings, payments). Where possible, we verified figures directly with project teams and built or sourced onchain dashboards on Dune.

As we approach DuneCon25 in the coming months, we will follow up with more content targeted specifically at LATAM-based teams and communities. Fill out this form if you believe your project should be highlighted. 

This analysis draws on publicly available wallet addresses for LATAM-based exchanges, stablecoins, and select payment apps/on- and off-ramp services (e.g., PayDece, BlindPay). The full list of addresses, chains, and verification sources is available in the following Dune’s table: dune.dune.dataset_latam_report_addresses. While we believe this dataset to be accurate, some entries may be incomplete or outdated.

Data limitations remain: in some cases, numbers are incomplete, lagging, or unverified, and certain projects may have been unintentionally omitted. If your project’s data is partial, outdated, or missing, please contact us at please contact us at filippo@dune.com so we can update the dataset and improve future datasets.

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1. Introduction

Latin America stands out as one of the most vibrant regions globally for crypto adoption, shaped by economic volatility, financial exclusion, and everyday necessity. Faced with chronic inflation, persistent currency devaluation, and limited access to traditional banking, millions across the region have turned to crypto, not for speculation, not for fun, but for survival, stability, and efficiency.

In the year ending June 2024, the region received $415 billion in crypto value, with Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina ranking in the global top 20 for grassroots crypto adoption (Chainalysis, 2024). The shift is visible in behavior: stablecoins are displacing Bitcoin as the most purchased crypto in markets like Argentina and Colombia, and trading activity reliably spikes around salary dates as users convert their pay into digital dollars to preserve value (Bitso, 2024).

In this ecosystem:

• Stablecoins, whether pegged to the US dollar or local currencies, serve as a vital financial lifeline across Latin America, enabling people to safeguard savings, send remittances, and preserve purchasing power. In Argentina, stablecoins accounted for over 70% of all crypto purchases in 2024 (Lemon, 2024).
• Exchanges like Lemon, Bitso and Ripio serve as critical infrastructure for access and liquidity. Centralized platforms dominate regional usage, with 68.7% of all crypto volume in LATAM flowing through CEXs, a share comparable to North America (Chainalysis, 2024).
• On/off-ramps like ZKP2P, PayDece and Capa play a vital role in linking crypto to local economies, especially in countries where traditional financial access remains limited.
• Payment apps like Picnic, Exa and BlindPay are making crypto usable, offering wallets, remittances, swaps, and even yield, all within mobile-native interfaces built for the local user.

Together, these pillars are creating a parallel financial system that is often more stable, more accessible, and more practical than the legacy alternatives.

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2. Exchanges

​​Centralized exchanges remain the dominant entry point into crypto in Latin America, accounting for 68.7% of all regional activity as of mid-2024, slightly below North America but well ahead of other emerging markets (Chainalysis, 2024). This reflects a user preference for trusted, regulated platforms with direct fiat access. These exchanges have expanded well beyond basic trading into payments, savings tools, and cross-border transfers, becoming critical onramps to the crypto economy.

The market is highly concentrated. Lemon’s 2024 report shows Binance controlling 54% of LATAM CEX volume, cementing its position as the dominant player. Among regional competitors such as Bitso, Foxbit, and Mercado Bitcoin, Lemon leads with 15% market share, underscoring the role of local apps in serving needs that global platforms may miss (Lemon, 2024).

Use cases are also evolving. On the retail side, exchanges are becoming more sophisticated: Bitso Alpha, the pro trading interface, handled volume comparable to Bitso Classic in 2024 despite fewer users, showing the outsized impact of engaged power traders (Bitso, 2024). At the institutional level, Brazil leads the region: transactions over $1M rose 48.4% QoQ from Q4 2023 to Q1 2024 (Chainalysis, 2024), driven by TradFi interest, ETF demand, and regulatory initiatives like the Drex pilot. Major banks such as Itaú and BTG Pactual have launched crypto investment services, blurring the lines between exchanges and banks. SMEs are also leveraging exchanges for cross-border settlement and currency hedging; in Brazil, for instance, crypto is used to avoid banking fees when paying suppliers abroad, particularly in Asia, where Bitcoin and stablecoins are already widely accepted (Frontera, 2024).

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Onchain Flow Analysis of LATAM Exchanges

Dashboard

The flow analysis tracks the movement of assets from and to exchanges’ hot wallets, providing a view of the capital entering and leaving these platforms. Unlike trading volume, which reflects order book activity, these flows capture actual onchain value transfer, deposits from users, withdrawals to external wallets, and settlement with other counterparties. This makes them a valuable proxy for real exchange usage, liquidity demand, and the role these platforms play in on/off-ramping between crypto and the wider economy. For availability reasons, the analysis does not include any native Bitcoin chain data, meaning total exchange volumes are likely lower than in reality and the role of BTC is underestimated, only represented here through its wrapped form on other networks (e.g., BTCB).

From early 2021 to mid-2025, flows through LATAM-based centralized exchanges trace a clear arc of growth, maturity, and consolidation, with total tracked transfer volumes rising from $3B in 2021 to $27B in 2024.

In 2021, activity was modest by global standards: Bitso processed under $2B, Mercado Bitcoin about $1.2B, and smaller players like Brasil Bitcoin and Ripio only tens of millions. The market was still fragmented across OTC desks, informal brokers, and a handful of formal exchanges. By 2022, diversification began, with new entrants such as Lemon Cash moving $90M in its first recorded year.

The real inflection came in 2023, when volumes more than quadrupled year-on-year. Bitso jumped from $2.5B to $13.6B, Lemon Cash nearly tripled to $260M, and exchanges became embedded in payment ecosystems, remittance corridors, and corporate treasury flows. Inflation and currency depreciation in Argentina and Brazil drove stablecoin demand, making exchanges critical USD on/off-ramps.

Peak liquidity arrived in 2024, with Bitso hitting $25.2B, Mercado Bitcoin tripling to $915M, and Lemon Cash reaching $870M. Crucially, this growth came without a sustained bull market, reflecting a shift toward real-world utility such as cross-border commerce, remittance settlements, and currency hedging.

Early 2025 brought a slowdown, with January at a recent low, but activity recovered steadily. By July, monthly volumes reached their highest since September 2024. Bitso’s $11B in January–July flows was below 2024’s pace but still several times any pre-2023 year; Mercado Bitcoin reached $990M, and Lemon Cash processed $890M in just over half a year, on track to match its record.

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Underpinning all of these flows is a clear technological pattern: Ethereum remains the backbone of LATAM exchange activity. From January 2021 to July 2025, Ethereum-based transfers accounted for over $45.5 billion in volume, roughly three-quarters of all recorded flows, reflecting its role as the primary settlement layer for high-value transfers, stablecoins, and tokenized assets. Tron ranks second with $12.5 billion, driven largely by its position as the lowest-cost rail for USDT transfers, which are widely used in remittances and cross-border payments. Solana holds third place with $1.45 billion in total flows, narrowly ahead of Polygon at $1.17 billion. Polygon’s share has been climbing steadily in 2025, driven by its expanding role in payment-focused activity, and in July it accounted for 7.2% of monthly volumes, just above Solana’s 7.1%. BNB Chain follows with $963 million in total volume. Base ($23.6 million) and Arbitrum ($11.2 million) remain smaller but are growing quickly: Base has already processed $22 million YTD compared to just $1 million in all of 2024, while Arbitrum has matched its full 2024 total by July.

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At the token level, the story is even clearer. As noted earlier in this report, stablecoins dominate the market: in July 2025, USDT and USDC together accounted for nearly 90% of all volume transferred. Over the full January 2021–July 2025 period, USDT has processed $32.4 billion, almost double USDC’s $18.36 billion, with the gap reflecting USDT’s central role on Tron. ETH is the third-largest asset overall, with $4.74 billion moved. SOL ranks 4th as of July 2025, accounting for about 1% of identified flows and an overall $660M transferred since 2021.

What’s striking is how the composition has shifted over time. In 2021–2022 and much of 2023, ETH often rivaled or even led stablecoins in volume share, and the top tokens list was more diverse, including BTCB, the BEP-20 version of Bitcoin, and MATIC, a top token thanks to Polygon’s role. Since late 2023, however, stablecoins, and especially USDT and USDC, have expanded their share dramatically. This evolution likely reflects a broader change in the use cases driving exchange flows: away from speculative trading of volatile assets, and toward practical applications such as payments, remittances, merchant settlement, and on/off-ramping for dollar savings.

This shift in blockchain and token composition points to a maturing LATAM exchange ecosystem. Ethereum remains the settlement backbone, Tron has taken a dominant role in low-cost stablecoin transfers, and Polygon is steadily growing its share by carving out a niche in payment-focused flows. Together, these trends signal that exchanges are increasingly used as payment and value-transfer rails rather than purely speculative trading venues.

Lemon Cash offers a clear example of this evolution. Proof of Reserve data shows the exchange holding around $100 millionin assets under custody by mid-2025, with stablecoins making up the bulk of its portfolio.

Stablecoin balances have hovered in the $20–30 million range for much of the past year, underscoring its role as a retail-friendly USD gateway.

Its network activity reveals a multi-chain approach: withdrawals are most active on Tron, BNB, and Ethereum while deposits are strongest on BNB, Tron, and Stellar with Polygon and newer L2s like Base growing from a smaller base. This reflects how exchanges in the region adapt to meet users where fees, speed, and accessibility align, even as settlement volumes at the regional level remain overwhelmingly Ethereum-led.

Overall, the chain and token data reinforce the structural story: LATAM exchanges have scaled massively on an Ethereum-heavy, stablecoin-driven foundation, with occasional speculative surges that can briefly reshape volume rankings. It’s a mix of pragmatic adoption and cultural dynamism that is likely to define the region’s exchange activity for years to come.

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3. Stablecoins

Stablecoins are the financial bedrock of crypto adoption in Latin America, serving purposes far beyond speculation. Across the region, they function as savings instruments, payment rails, remittance channels, and hedges against inflation, making them the most practical and widely adopted form of cryptocurrency. Latin America now leads globally in real-world stablecoin implementation: according to State of Stablecoins 2025 by Fireblocks, 71% of respondents use stablecoins for cross-border payments, and 100% are either live, piloting, or planning a stablecoin strategy. Equally significant, 92% report that their wallet and API infrastructure is already stablecoin-ready, underscoring both demand and technical maturity. For millions across the region, stablecoins have become the digital equivalent of the US dollar, an accessible hedge against inflation and a means to bypass capital controls (Frontera, 2024). In many cases, they represent the only practical way for citizens to hold dollarized savings.

In countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, stablecoins have overtaken Bitcoin as the preferred asset for everyday use, driven by their price stability and direct access to dollar-denominated value (State of Stablecoins 2025, Fireblocks). This trend aligns with the exchange data presented in the previous section, where over 90% of exchanges’ transfer volume involved USDC and USDT. In Argentina, these two stablecoins accounted for 72% of all crypto purchases on Bitso in 2024, compared to just 8% for Bitcoin (Bitso, 2024). The pattern is similar in Colombia, where stablecoins made up 48% of purchases, aided by restrictions on USD bank accounts and persistent currency volatility. In Brazil, the shift is even more pronounced: on local exchanges, stablecoin volumes grew +207.7% year-over-year, outpacing all other crypto assets (Chainalysis, Oct 2024). Beyond transfers, stablecoins accounted for 39% of purchases regionally in 2024, up from 30% the year before (Bitso, 2024).

Local Stablecoins

Dashboard

While dollar-pegged assets still dominate stablecoin usage in Latin America as a hedge against inflation, the past two years have brought rapid growth in stablecoins tied to local currencies. Pegged to national fiat such as the Brazilian real or Mexican peso, these tokens are increasingly used for domestic payments, onchain commerce, and integration with local financial systems. By removing the need for constant USD–fiat conversion, they cut costs for merchants and users while speeding up settlement for local commerce. For businesses, they connect directly with payment systems like Brazil’s PIX, enabling instant, bank-free transfers that align with accounting and tax requirements. In high-inflation economies, they also act as a bridge asset, allowing users to transact in a stable local denomination while retaining the option to hedge into USD or other stores of value when needed.

Brazil offers the clearest case study of this trend, with BRL-pegged stablecoins posting extraordinary year-over-year growth. From just over 5,000 transfers in 2021, activity scaled to more than 1.4 million in 2024 and remains above 1.2 million in 2025 YTD, over 230x higher than four years ago. Unique sender counts followed a similar path, climbing from fewer than 800 in 2021 to more than 90,000 in 2025, an 11x jump since 2023 alone. Native transfer volume grew from about 110 million BRL (~$20.9 million USD at the time of writing) in 2021 to nearly 5 billion BRL (~$900 million USD) at July 2025, nearly matching all 2024. When including August to date, 2025 already surpassed 2024. What began as a marginal experiment has rapidly matured into a core pillar of Brazil’s onchain economy, with transactions, users, and value transferred all multiplying many times over in just a few years.

By June 2025, five distinct BRL-pegged stablecoins were actively transacting, reducing concentration and signalling a maturing ecosystem. BRZ, issued by Transfero, a blockchain-based financial solutions company providing infrastructure for banks, fintechs, and payment providers across Latin America. cREAL, issued by the Celo blockchain, brings a mobile-first DeFi integration approach. BRLA, from BRLA Digital/Avenia, focuses on compliant fiat–crypto bridges. BRL1, backed by a consortium including Mercado Bitcoin, Bitso, and Foxbit, aims to establish an industry-wide standard. BBRL, from Braza Group, is positioned for regional commerce and payments.

Despite this growth, BRL stablecoins remain at an early stage, with ~US$23M in circulation.

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Moreover, the landscape is evolving rapidly, and as Iporanga Ventures highlights in its latest BRL Stablecoin Report, there is still no clear market leader, although a closer look at project-level data reveals distinct areas of leadership. 

BRLA leads in unique senders, indicating the broadest retail reach.

cREAL dominates in the number of transfers, reflecting its early traction in retail and micro-payments.

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In terms of native transfer volume, BRZ was the clear leader until mid-2024, when cREAL surged to the top during the second half of that year. Celo’s lead in volume receded in early 2025 as BRLA grew steadily. Then, in July 2025, BBRL staged a dramatic entry, accounting for roughly 65% of all native transfer volume, a spike tied to its launch on XRPL, despite still having a relatively small number of active senders.

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Unlike USD-pegged stablecoins, whose supply and transfers are concentrated on Ethereum mainnet, BRL-pegged stablecoins are overwhelmingly active on Layer 2s and alternative rails. Polygon is the primary corridor, leading by both native volume and active users; in July 2025 it saw ~74,000 transfers from 14,000 unique users and a record 500M BRL in monthly volume. 

Celo ranks second and holds the all-time lead in transfers, peaking at 213,000 in December 2024 on cREAL’s early retail and micro-payment traction. In 2025, Celo’s volumes remain substantial despite fewer unique senders, reflecting larger, repeat flows through merchants, aggregators, and treasuries.

XRPL is a notable newcomer, surging in July 2025 with BBRL’s debut: transfers rose from the low hundreds in May to ~3,000 in July, while native volume spiked to ~1.16B BRL, signaling an emerging high-value corridor. 

Base shows steady growth through 2025, peaking in June, while BNB retains a smaller footprint after steep declines in transfers and senders since 2022. Ethereum mainnet plays a limited role, used intermittently for large, infrequent transfers, though BRZ briefly led activity there between late 2023 and early 2024.

Beyond the raw metrics, Iporanga Ventures’ report shows adoption driven by practical, high-value use cases. B2B payments lead, with companies paying suppliers or employees abroad and settling locally via PIX, while inbound flows see USD converted to BRL stablecoins for domestic payouts. They are emerging as key infrastructure for Brazil’s tokenized asset ecosystem, enabling onchain settlements without bank custody. In the gig economy and among SMEs, stablecoins support payouts, hedging, and capital protection, with merchant integrations like CloudWalk’s BRLC and Mercado Pago’s USD stablecoin expanding mainstream access.

While Brazil offers the most diverse and mature ecosystem of local-currency stablecoins, Mexico’s peso-pegged market is taking shape along two main projects, MXNB from Juno/Bitso and MXNe from Brale, each following a different adoption trajectory. MXNB, in particular, has evolved from sporadic, issuance-sized bursts in late 2024 to a steadier and broader pattern of usage through 2025.

MXNB’s growth in 2025 marks a clear shift toward everyday usage. July 2025 saw 179 transfers from 70 unique senders, up sharply from 46 transfers and 21 senders a year earlier (+339% and +290% YoY).

While volume peaked earlier in January 2025 at 14.5 million MXN (roughly $750,000 USD at the time of writing) on relatively few transactions, July’s 0.48 million MXN (about $25,000 USD) came from many more, smaller payments. The average ticket size fell from approximately 28.7 k MXN  in July 2024 to 3.6k MXN . This shift coincided with a decisive migration to Arbitrum: in 2024, around 99% of transfers were on Ethereum, but since Q2 2025, ~94% have moved to Arbitrum, making low-fee Layer-2 rails the default.

MXNe by Brale has taken the opposite path, growing into the largest MXN-pegged stablecoin by volume while operating exclusively on Base.

Activity peaked in March 2025 with 3,367 transfers from 274 senders, but even as counts eased, volumes kept rising—reaching a record ~637.7M MXN in July 2025 from 2,148 transfers and 158 senders. This pushed the average ticket size to nearly 297k MXN, pointing to high-value transactions and possible institutional use.

The contrast is clear: MXNB now dominates in smaller, retail-style payments, while MXNe appears focused on larger settlements. Compared to Brazil’s more diversified BRL landscape, Mexico’s market remains concentrated around these two issuers and fewer rails, although this hasn’t slowed liquidity growth. Since mid-2025, peso pairs have quickly climbed into the top DEX volume ranks, signaling a maturing market structure.

DEX Liquidity and Trading Patterns

The rise of BRL- and MXN-pegged stablecoins in Latin America extends beyond payments into meaningful decentralized exchange (DEX) liquidity, creating onchain FX corridors between local currencies and global stablecoins.

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Among BRL-linked assets, cREAL is the dominant trading hub. Its largest pair, CELO–cREAL, has processed ~$126M in cumulative volume, supported by deep liquidity in Celo's native DEX ecosystem. cREAL also anchors major cross-stablecoin markets—cREAL–USDT ($87.7M), cREAL–cUSD ($59.1M), and non-USD pairs like cEUR–cREAL ($48.6M) and cKES–cREAL ($24.9M), underscoring its dual role as both a BRL on-ramp and a base currency for multi-currency swaps. However, after peaking at $80M in November 2024 (85% of total tracked stablecoin volume that month), cREAL’s monthly DEX volume has steadily declined, reaching just $5M in July 2025, back to its July 2024 level.

BRLA is emerging as the main USD corridor, with BRLA–USDC ($97.5M) and BRLA–USDT ($21.3M) leading its pairs. Since March 2025, BRLA–USDC has been the top USD-denominated DEX pair in the dataset, apart from May 2025, when MXNB pairs briefly overtook it. While BRLA never reached cREAL’s peak volumes, in July 2025, BRLA pairs moved $9M, nearly double cREAL’s volume that month and triple BRLA’s own volume from July 2024.

BRZ remains steady and broadly integrated, with liquidity spread across BRZ–USDC ($15.1M), BRZ–USDT ($14.7M), and BRZ–BUSD (~$9.1M). It has the widest range of trading pairs among BRL stablecoins, and while its volumes are smaller than cREAL or BRLA, it has grown consistently, from $26K in July 2024 to $3M in July 2025, peaking at $4.77M in April.

As for MXN-pegged stablecoins, MXNB’s largest pairs—MXNB–WAVAX ($29.7M) and MXNB–USDC ($18.6M)—spiked in May 2025 during high-value trades and liquidity inflows. Since then, peso pairs have remained strong, with three MXN pairs still among the top local-stablecoin DEX pairs by volume, suggesting the surge was not a one-off.

MXNe, operating exclusively on Base, is concentrated in MXNe–USDC (~$18.3M). Its DEX activity has grown steadily from $1.13M in March to $6.6M in July 2025, aligning with Base’s push for local stablecoins integrated into deep USD pools. Interestingly, while MXNe leads MXNB in transfer volume, MXNB commands higher DEX volumes, pointing to MXNe’s role in high-value transfers and USD integration, versus MXNB’s niche in active onchain trading.

DEX volumes for BRL1 and BBRL remain limited, and cross-currency stablecoin activity is also small, only three pairs see any notable activity, with the largest (BRLA–BRZ) peaking at ~$400K in April 2025.

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Volumes are concentrated among a handful of venues, each tied to distinct local stablecoin ecosystems. Uniswap remains the clear liquidity giant, with $426M in total volume and a central role in BRL- and MXN-pegged stablecoin markets across Ethereum and Layer 2s. Chain-native DEXs hold decisive share for their respective stablecoins: Trader Joe ($52.8M) and PancakeSwap ($13.3M) capture most BRZ liquidity on Avalanche and BNB Chain, while Mento ($50.8M) serves as the dedicated venue for cREAL trading on Celo. 1inch Limit Order Protocol operates differently, acting more as an aggregator settlement layer than a liquidity host, often surfacing in large, one-off swaps rather than maintaining deep pools.

One of the most notable developments of 2025 has been the rise of Aerodrome, which has amassed $25.8M in cumulative volume—almost entirely since Q2—driven by MXNe–USDC trading. Its role as Base’s chain-native anchor for local stablecoins mirrors Mento’s position within Celo’s ecosystem. Smaller but noteworthy venues such as Carbon DeFi ($4.8M), Pharaoh ($1.95M), and Balancer (~$1.8M) cater to fragmented or niche cross-asset pools. Overall, local stablecoin liquidity is expanding in absolute terms while becoming increasingly anchored to chain-native DEX infrastructure, with Aerodrome’s rapid ascent standing out as the clearest example in 2025.

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Liquidity patterns remain closely tied to each stablecoin’s home chain and dominant DEX. Celo leads by total volume at $363M, driven almost entirely by cREAL–cUSD/USDC trading on Mento, consistently topping USD-denominated volumes from July 2024 to February 2025. Polygon follows with $136M, offering a diverse mix of BRL-pegged liquidity—particularly BRLA and BRZ—across Uniswap and QuickSwap, reflecting its dual role in stablecoin transfers and DeFi/payment integrations. Avalanche ranks third at ~$54.8M, propelled by a sharp May 2025 spike in MXNB–WAVAX trading on Trader Joe, the chain’s largest DEX, with Uniswap, Pharaoh, and 1inch Limit Order Protocol adding further liquidity for BRL and MXN markets. Base comes next with ~$26.2M, fueled almost entirely by MXNe–USDC trading on Aerodrome, which has risen in lockstep with Base’s 2025 push into local stablecoins.

The broader takeaway is clear: local stablecoin DEX liquidity is ecosystem-anchored, with each major chain pairing its flagship asset to a handful of dominant venues. The breakout growth stories of 2025—Trader Joe on Avalanche for MXNB and Aerodrome on Base for MXNe—illustrate how blockchain adoption and exchange dominance can reinforce each other when a local stablecoin becomes strategically important.

Beyond Brazil and Mexico, several other Latin American countries have experimented with local-currency stablecoins, though most remain in early-stage growth or limited trials. In Argentina, extreme currency volatility has hindered ARS-pegged tokens such as Transfero’s ARZ and Num Finance’s nARS from gaining lasting traction. Colombia has seen multiple launches, including nCOP (Num Finance), cCOP (Celo/Mento), COPM (Minteo), and COPW (Bancolombia), targeting remittances and domestic payments, though adoption is still modest. Chile’s CLPD on Base and Peru’s nPEN (Num Finance) and sPEN (Anclap on Stellar) likewise remain niche, with usage largely confined to pilot programs and specific payment corridors. While these projects point to growing regional interest, their volumes are still limited, underscoring how local conditions, especially currency stability and regulatory clarity, play a decisive role in driving adoption.

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4. Onramps and Offramps

Onramps and offramps—both centralized and peer-to-peer—form the critical connective tissue between the crypto economy and traditional finance in Latin America. These access points are especially vital in countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, where users often convert their salaries into stablecoins the same day they are paid, using crypto not as a bet, but as a buffer against volatility.

In Brazil, the government-supported Pix system plays a pivotal role as a fiat-to-crypto onramp, providing instant and low-cost settlement. In Argentina, informal currency exchange networks known as cuevas still function as primary offramps—despite the growth of formal platforms—due to capital controls and economic uncertainty.

Behavioral data from Bitso (2024) shows that crypto usage spikes on specific days and times of the week, aligning with salary cycles. This behavioral pattern reinforces the view that crypto is a practical financial tool for preserving purchasing power in volatile environments.

Newer players like PayDece, zkP2P, and Takenos are innovating at the infrastructure layer, building non-custodial and mobile-first solutions designed to serve underserved populations and increase financial sovereignty. Their emergence marks a shift toward more decentralized and censorship-resistant rails.

For the region’s growing population of freelancers and remote workers, crypto offramps are becoming an essential component of the stack, helping them receive international payments in crypto, particularly in stablecoins, bypassing unstable local currencies and limited access to traditional banking services (Frontera, 2024).

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ZKP2P

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ZKP2P is a decentralized, trust-minimized P2P on/off-ramp protocol that uses advanced cryptographic proofs—like zkEmail and zkTLS—to enable direct swaps between fiat and crypto without intermediaries, fees, or additional verification. Launched in late 2023 and upgraded to V2 in 2024, the protocol now supports multi-chain swaps (Ethereum, Solana, Base, Polygon) and a wide range of tokens, from USDC and ETH to local favorites and even memecoins.

In Argentina, ZKP2P integrates with Mercado Pago to allow near-instant conversion between Argentine pesos (ARS) and USDC.

Since launch, the LATAM-focused rails have processed over a hundred onramp transactions totaling $3K+ USDC, with an average trade size of $30 but ranging from microtransactions of just $1 to larger $356 trades. 

Fulfillment times are fast by P2P standards, with a median settlement of ~30 minutes over the past week.

Globally, ZKP2P has seen far greater traction, with 4,861 total onramps and over $1.9M processed in V2 (and $2.08M across V1 and V2 combined).

Liquidity across all payment rails currently sits at $114K, with top corridors including Revolut ($470K total volume), Wise ($390K), Cash App ($327K), and Venmo ($559K). The average global on/offramp transaction size is $385, more than 12x the LATAM average, highlighting the growth potential as the region scales to match global patterns.

While still early in LATAM, ZKP2P is gaining steady traction, especially for low-value, high-frequency use cases. Upcoming integrations with PIX in Brazil and other local rails could expand its role as a key permissionless bridge between local currencies and crypto. A standout example is the Daimo Pay × ZKP2P × World Account integration, which turns the multi-step process of converting Worldcoin’s $WLD UBI into pesos into a seamless one-tap flow. Using Daimo’s SDK, users can swap $WLD to USDC, bridge to Base, and list on ZKP2P, settling in ~15 minutes directly inside the World App. This model delivers faster, cheaper settlement and showcases how chain-agnostic, non-custodial offramps can turn crypto from a speculative asset into spendable income.

“ZKP2P turns stablecoins into everyday spending money, letting users swap USDC into Argentine pesos in minutes. It’s fully onchain, transparent, and without the friction of traditional banks.”
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— Ben, Head of Growth at ZKP2P

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PayDece

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PayDece is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency onramp platform built on the core principles of Web3: decentralization, privacy, and self-custody. Through smart contracts and without centralized intermediaries, it enables secure, anonymous trading without mandatory identity verification (KYC).

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Across all supported chains, PayDece has processed over 44,000 transfers involving an estimated 15,000 unique users. Activity is heavily concentrated in stablecoins—USDT ($19.17M) and USDC ($7.74M)—with BNB Chain leading blockchain usage at $19.5M, followed by Polygon ($6.3M), Avalanche ($1.68M), and Base ($0.83M).

Since late 2023, PayDece’s activity has shown strong early growth, climbing from under $300K in monthly volume in November 2023 to $1.79M in July 2025, with peaks above $2.4M in late 2024. Transfers and user counts rose in parallel, with notable spikes in April 2024, November–December 2024, and June–July 2025. Volumes remain well above early adoption levels, signaling a stable base of recurring users and sustained transaction flow.

With its privacy-first design, multi-chain support, and growing onchain liquidity, PayDece is emerging as a leading decentralized alternative for LATAM users seeking censorship-resistant, self-custodial on/off-ramping solutions.

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Capa

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‍Capa is a financial infrastructure provider focused on making crypto access and utility seamless for Latin America. Its API allows fintechs, businesses, and payment apps to embed stablecoin rails, enable fiat–crypto conversion, and power cross-border transactions directly within their services. By emphasizing liquidity, regulatory compliance, and network diversity, Capa addresses the fragmented nature of LATAM’s payment systems and the high cost of moving money across borders.

Since launch, Capa has processed $29.9M in total volume across 5,501 transactions. The platform operates across multiple blockchains, with Polygon leading at $14.1M, followed by Solana ($6.95M), Tron ($2.73M), Optimism ($2.52M), Arbitrum ($1.26M), Base ($1.11M), and Ethereum ($1.06M), with smaller flows through BNB Chain.

Capa’s user base, over 900 unique addresses, is increasingly concentrated on low-cost, fast-settlement chains. As of July 2025, 68% of users transacted via Polygon, followed by Base (10%), Arbitrum (7%), Ethereum (4%), and Solana (4%). This marks a sharp shift from December 2024, when Solana held a 20% share and Polygon just 33%.

In terms of flow direction, Capa facilitated retail transactions composed of 1,173 onramp transactions and 809 offramp transactions to date. Both categories have seen substantial growth in 2025, especially in the last few months.

From July 2024 to July 2025, monthly retail (B2C) onramp volume grew from an average of just $200 to $1.3K, while offramp volume rose from $336 to $1.2K, reflecting rising demand for stablecoin conversion and withdrawals as the platform integrates with more regional partners.

This growth in monthly volume signals increasing adoption of Capa’s API among fintechs and wallets that rely on it as a backend provider for stablecoin payments and cross-border value transfer. It enables seamless settlements in USDC and USDT across diverse networks, reducing friction for both B2C and B2B applications.

A recent example of Capa’s unique positioning is its role in supporting MXNe, a Mexican peso-pegged stablecoin launched on Base and listed on Coinbase Wallet. Built by Etherfuse, with infrastructure from Brale and liquidity provided by Capa, this marks a step forward for accessible, local-first financial tools. Notably, Capa is currently the only platform offering 1:1 MXN ↔ MXNe on/off-ramps, bridging fiat and onchain assets with full regulatory alignment.

With its dual focus on on/off-ramping and real-time settlement, Capa is emerging as a key infrastructure layer for the LATAM crypto economy, less visible to users, but critical in powering compliant, efficient, and scalable crypto integration across the region.

“For LATAM, crypto means opportunity. Capa unites fragmented economies, giving people seamless access to the global financial system.”

— Jonathan Herrera, Head of Capital Markets at Capa

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5. Payment Apps

Crypto-powered payment apps and neobanks are some of the most effective distribution channels in Latin America. Exchanges like Lemon, Belo, Buenbit and Ripio offer both physical and digital cards for everyday payments. Platforms like Picnic, BlindPay, and Exa offer USD-denominated balances, yield features, and stablecoin payments all in one app, positioning themselves as crypto-native neobanks. Interestingly, the demand for crypto-powered financial tools continues to grow. According to Lemon, crypto app downloads in Latin America doubled year-over-year in Q2 2024, reflecting renewed user interest. This resurgence suggests a shift from hype-driven onboarding to need-driven usage (Lemon, 2024).

In Argentina, Lemon Cash's crypto card lets users spend stablecoins while paying in pesos, bridging crypto with real-world utility. Users even earn Bitcoin cashback, creating an incentive loop that blends savings and spending (Frontera, 2024).

Apps are increasingly used by the unbanked and underbanked to manage finances, without ever needing a bank account. In many rural or excluded areas, crypto apps are a replacement, rather than a complement, to TradFi.

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Picnic

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Picnic is a decentralized investment platform built on blockchain, designed to simplify access to digital assets. Its Smart Wallet, powered by Safe contracts and ERC-4337 account abstraction, lets users onboard with just an email while retaining self-custody. Beyond investing in curated baskets of crypto assets, Picnic has expanded into real-world payments via Picnic Pay, a partnership with Gnosis Pay that brings the first stablecoin card to Brazil.

• Users can top up their Gnosis Pay card via Pix, Brazil’s instant payment system, depositing BRL that is automatically converted to USD and settled onchain.
• The card supports online and in-store purchases and integrates with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet.
• Picnic Pay connects directly with DeFi protocols, for example allowing funds from Aave or yield-bearing BRL stablecoins to be spent directly.
  

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All USDC.e activity from Gnosis Pay in Brazil is attributable to Picnic, which now accounts for ~7% of Gnosis Pay’s total weekly volume but nearly 15% of total weekly payments, underscoring its high transaction frequency relative to value per payment.

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Since launch, Picnic has grown to 350+ daily active users, processing over 45,000 payments per week and exceeding $150K in weekly volume.

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Activity has remained strong beyond the initial Web Summit Rio launch in April 2025, with daily transactions regularly in the 800–1,000 range and occasional peaks above 1,100. At the end of July, user balances stood at $80K, down from a July peak of $200K, suggesting funds are actively cycled through the platform rather than left idle, consistent with its role as a spend-focused payment tool rather than a long-term store of value.

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Picnic integrated with Avenia to offer BBRL yield products, expanding its savings suite beyond BRLA. Users can convert BRLA into yield-bearing versions like stBRLA or yBRLA, earning around 12% APY with returns linked to Brazil’s CDI rate. Beyond savings, Picnic connects users to major DeFi platforms such as Aave and Morpho enabling, for example, BTC borrowing in Brazil, thus expanding the ways local stablecoins can be used for earning, trading, and accessing credit.

With Picnic Pay and its DeFi yield integrations, the platform sits at the intersection of asset management and consumer payments. By embedding stablecoin card functionality into its investment platform, it connects yield-bearing and self-custodied assets directly to everyday spending, an emerging model in LATAM, where local payment rails like Pix serve as the bridge to onchain settlement.

“Picnic lets Brazilians spend in foreign currency at rates 4% cheaper than Wise, while offering non-custodial token purchases, yield, and free BRL on/off-ramps via Pix through our BRLA integration.”

— João Ferreira, Co-Founder & CEO at Picnic

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Exa App

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Exactly Protocol is a decentralized, non-custodial interest rate market that offers both variable and fixed lending and borrowing rates, with rates determined by the utilization of multiple maturity pools.

The Exa App extends this model to mobile, allowing users to deposit assets such as USDC, ETH, wstETH, WBTC, and OP, which remain in self-custody and continue earning variable interest until spent. After completing KYC verification (required for Visa compliance), users can access the Exa Card, an onchain payment card that supports two modes:

• Pay Now, where purchases are deducted directly from the interest-earning balance.
• Installments, where the app borrows at a fixed rate from Exactly’s lending pools at the time of purchase, with repayment spread over up to six fixed intervals.

As of the latest data, the Exa App holds $1.62M in user balances (TVL ~$1.08M), with ETH and USDC as the top assets at around $650K each, followed by WBTC at roughly half that amount, and smaller allocations in other tokens.

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The Exa Card has processed $5.04M in total volume, the majority of which comes from Pay Now transactions, with $793K attributed to installment (Pay Later) payments. Compared to card usage, lending remains a smaller share of activity, with 69 loans issued to 30 borrowers, totaling $47.4K.

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Overall, usage is currently concentrated in card transactions, with loan volumes representing a smaller share. The combination of yield-bearing deposits and fixed-rate borrowing for payments presents a distinct onchain payment model, where the net cost or benefit to the user depends on the spread between deposit yields and borrowing rates.

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“Crypto adoption in LATAM isn’t a trend, it’s a necessity. The Exa App is building the tools people need to make that adoption useful, accessible, and real.”

— Gabriel Gruber, Founder & CEO at Exa App

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BlindPay

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BlindPay provides an API infrastructure for businesses to send and receive payments globally in both fiat and stablecoins. It manages the complexities of compliance, regulatory requirements, and integration with diverse payment rails, including Pix (Brazil), SPEI (Mexico), and PSE (Colombia) in Latam and ACH, Wire, RTP and SWIFT in the US. On the blockchain side, it supports Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon and Tron, enabling settlement flows between crypto and local fiat systems. BlindPay offers various functionalities, including:

• API-first integration: Developer-friendly endpoints for embedding global payments into apps and platforms.
• Compliance handled at the infrastructure layer: Built-in KYC/KYB, fraud detection, and regulatory alignment.
• Local and cross-border payments: Supports regional instant payment systems alongside stablecoin transfers.
• Settlement speed: Designed for significantly faster settlement compared to traditional rails.

Since launch, BlindPay has processed $93M in total volume across all regions of activity, including the US, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia, with the majority of volume concentrated in LATAM countries. While these numbers only cover until June, the team has highlighted that July and August brought in additional $70M in volume.

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Polygon accounts for $91.86M, or about 99% of total processed volume, followed by Arbitrum ($756K) and Base ($426K). Monthly volumes have grown from single-digit millions in mid-2024 to sustained multi-million-dollar levels in 2025, reflecting both increased API adoption and expansion into more payment corridors.

By combining stablecoin rails with local payment infrastructure, BlindPay targets the operational gap between blockchain settlement and real-world payouts, particularly relevant for LATAM businesses that need to bridge multiple currencies, banking systems, and jurisdictions.

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“We’re transforming cross-border payments in Latin America by reducing remittance costs from 1.5% to 0.1% while accelerating settlement from 2–3 business days to seconds through Real-Time Payments. We’re also democratizing USD access by providing virtual dollar accounts to individuals and businesses across the region, essentially giving anyone the ability to hold and transact in dollars without needing a US bank account.”

— Bernardo Simonassi Moura, CEO at BlindPay

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6. Off-Dune but On the Map

While this report focuses on projects with onchain data available on Dune, the breadth of LATAM’s crypto ecosystem goes well beyond our current coverage. The region is home to a wide range of mature, innovative platforms that we cannot yet track with verifiable onchain data. Highlighting them here underscores both the depth and diversity of the industry, and our hope is to work with these teams to bring their data to Dune in the future.

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Abroad – Open-source payment infrastructure that integrates USDC with real-time fiat networks, enabling instant, low-cost cross-border and in-person payments. Partners, including wallets, banks, and fintechs, can embed Abroad to let users pay in local systems such as Pix (Brazil) and PSE (Colombia). Recent partnerships include Beans and Decaf, with a focus on LATAM markets and strict regulatory compliance.

Amero – A fintech platform building financial infrastructure to connect Latin America’s traditional payment rails with the digital asset ecosystem. Its on/off-ramp supports over 100 payment methods, including cards, bank transfers, and cash transactions at 350,000+ locations. Amero integrates with Circle’s Programmable Wallets to support Ethereum, Avalanche, and Polygon, and is launching prepaid Mastercard/Visa cards in Mexico for USDC top-ups, global spending, and ATM withdrawals. Partnerships with Circle and MoneyGram enable remittances and self-cashouts, targeting unbanked users, merchants, and freelancers.

Argiefy – An Argentine fintech app designed to help users save money and make better financial decisions in a volatile economy. It offers tools like currency converters, verified deals, coupons, promotions, and community-shared offers for everyday purchases and travel. The platform also integrates crypto-to-fiat conversion services through partners like zkp2p, combining local deals with access to digital asset liquidity.

Bando – an onchain spending protocol that lets users pay for real-world goods and services directly with cryptocurrencies and stablecoins—without fiat conversion or traditional off-ramps. Operating in over 100 countries and 6,000+ businesses, it supports merchants like Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb, as well as prepaid codes, airtime top-ups, bill payments, and digital goods. Built to address LATAM’s financial barriers through Web3, Bando integrates with wallets such as MiniPay, Binance Wallet, and Base App, enabling seamless shopping, top-ups, and digital services using DeFi liquidity and smart contracts to route transactions to verified fulfillers.

Buenbit – an Argentine-founded fintech platform operating across Latin America, including Mexico and Peru, offering a user-friendly app for cryptocurrency trading, savings with daily yields, credit lines backed by crypto collateral, and an international Mastercard for seamless payments using stablecoins or other assets. Supporting over 40 cryptos like BTC, ETH, DAI, and USDT on networks such as Ethereum and Polygon, it enables fee-free deposits, instant transfers via Buentag, and secure non-custodial wallets for more than 700,000 users seeking financial inclusion amid regional volatility.

Coinsenda — A wallet and exchange service for individuals and businesses to swap 18 digital assets for local currency, with an active OTC desk in USDT. With 90% of activity on TRON, Coinsenda serves 2,900+ MAUs and processes ~$546K monthly. USDT accounts for over 87% of recent transactions, driven by free TRON withdrawals and strong adoption for salary payments, with smaller volumes in remittances.

El Dorado — A P2P marketplace for buying and selling stablecoins via the most popular payment methods in Latin America. Through its app, users can send and receive USDT and other stablecoins, with 90% of activity coming from retail market takers served by a 10,000-merchant liquidity network. Primarily active in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia, El Dorado processes $18M in monthly transfer volume from 180,000 MAUs, with TRON holding a 60% market share.

KAST — A payment platform offering a seamless stablecoin experience, including global credit card spending. With over 500K total users (50K–100K MAUs) and ~$0.5B in total volume, KAST supports cross-chain payments and on/off ramp services across LATAM, EU, USA, and Asia. TRON leads usage with a 55% share, and Brazil is driving the strongest growth, with 112% MoM spend growth in 1H 2025.

Kripton — A Latin American payment processor and retail crypto service provider applying Bitcoin’s decentralization philosophy to commerce since 2019. In April 2025, it adopted USDT on TRON as its primary digital dollar for secure and subsidized payments. Serving retail, merchants, and payment platforms, Kripton’s network is deeply integrated into the region’s stablecoin economy, with TRON making up 70% of usage.

Muney App – A fintech platform that makes it easy to buy, sell, transfer, and cash out stablecoins across Latin America. Built on Polygon, it offers plug-and-play infrastructure for wallets and apps, connecting digital dollars to local cash via a decentralized network of verified merchants. Users can deposit or withdraw in cash, send peer-to-peer payments, and access compliant off-ramps, with a strong focus on remittances—including sending from multiple countries to Venezuela for USD cash withdrawals.

Mural Pay – Fintech platform and API specializing in stablecoin-powered payments, offering instant global pay-ins, payouts, invoicing, virtual accounts, and compliance tools for businesses. Active in over 40 markets with a strong focus on LATAM and Africa, it enables low-cost, real-time transactions in stablecoins and traditional currencies. Recent partnerships, like with Taxbit, expand its stablecoin invoicing and cross-border payment capabilities across the US, Europe, and Latin America.

Orionx – A Chilean cryptocurrency exchange and financial infrastructure provider operating in Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico. Founded in 2017, it offers buying, selling, and trading for over 20 digital assets with fiat onramps starting from 10,000 CLP. In June 2025, Orionx secured a strategic Series A investment from Tether to scale stablecoin-powered remittances, payment collection, treasury services, and on/off-ramp infrastructure across LATAM.

Sphere — A digital economy “operating system” for fast, secure cross-border payments in underserved markets. Serving retail, merchants, and developers, Sphere integrates stablecoin-powered on/off ramps with a focus on financial inclusion. Operating in LATAM and the US, it has a 45% TRON market share and is seeing 68% quarterly growth in total platform volume.

Swapido – Non-custodial, Lightning Network-based platform enabling instant Bitcoin-to-MXN conversion and bank transfers in Mexico. Designed for remittances, payments, and everyday expenses, it allows users worldwide to sell BTC and send pesos to any local bank account in seconds. Currently BTC-only, with stablecoin support planned for 2025.

Takenos – is an Argentine fintech app serving as a digital wallet and web3 neobank, tailored for freelancers, gamers, influencers, and anyone handling cross-border payments in Latin America. Users can receive income worldwide in USD, EUR, or other currencies, withdraw via crypto, local cash, or USD, and access features like instant payment links, debit/credit cards, and seamless global transfers.

Ugly Cash – Stablecoin-based financial services app offering high-yield accounts, instant and fee-free cross-border transfers to 60+ countries, and a Visa card with 1% cashback. Users can hold and spend stablecoins, withdraw from ATMs, and access virtual accounts for USD, EUR, and MXN bank transfers.

Leading Latin American fintechs like Nubank, Mercado Pago, PicPay and RappiPay have evolved from traditional banking and payment services into crypto, mirroring global players like Revolut and PayPal. Together serving hundreds of millions, they now enable in-app buying, selling, holding, and transferring of assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins—often with yield or cashback perks. Mercado Pago integrated crypto into its e-commerce stack and launched the USD-pegged Meli Dólar in 2024; PicPay added BTC, ETH, and USDP trading with a BRL stablecoin and Binance link planned; RappiPay rolled out crypto payments alongside its wallet, cards, and savings accounts. By embedding crypto into popular fintech apps, these incumbents offer compliant, low-friction access for millions in volatile economies.

7. Conclusion

As seen throughout this report, Latin America’s crypto story is about building an alternative financial infrastructure people actually use. Across the region, onchain adoption is driven by practical needs: protecting savings from inflation, moving money across borders, settling with suppliers, paying salaries, and enabling everyday commerce.

Latin America has been developing a parallel financial system that is multi-chain, stablecoin-led, and deeply integrated with local payment rails. It’s increasingly capable of handling the same functions as traditional banking, but often faster, cheaper, and more accessible.

Challenges remain, such as data gaps, uneven regulation, and the need for deeper liquidity in local-currency stablecoins. But the trajectory is clear: what began as speculative trading is evolving into a resilient, multi-layered ecosystem where crypto is not just an investment, but the default way to save, send, and spend.

If the last decade was about proving crypto could work in theory, the next will be about scaling what already works in practice. The next chapter of LATAM’s onchain economy will be shaped by builders, analysts, and communities working together. DuneCon 2025 is where those conversations will happen — see you in Buenos Aires on Nov 19.