The Money Layer Unveiled: How Crypto is Reshaping Finance in Latin America's Diverse Markets
The story of cryptocurrency in Latin America is anything but a passing financial trend—it’s a vivid example of innovation born out of real, pressing need. In a region where hyperinflation, volatile currencies, and fragmented or inaccessible traditional banking are everyday realities, crypto has long since outgrown its speculative reputation.
Today, let’s dive into the Dune research report, The Money Layer: LATAM Crypto 2025, and unpack the major insights, especially around the rise of stablecoins.
Crypto isn’t just a tool for speculation anymore; for millions, it’s become essential for preserving value, making payments, and even building wealth. And if you really want to understand this transformation, you have to let go of the idea that Latin America is a single, unified market—the region’s diversity means crypto adoption varies dramatically from country to country.
The numbers tell the story: from 2021 to 2024, Latin American crypto exchanges saw annual transaction volume surge ninefold, reaching $27 billion.
This isn't merely a statistic; it serves as a robust indicator of the accelerating trust and escalating demand for digital currencies across the continent, unequivocally signaling crypto's definitive transition from the periphery to the financial mainstream. The report's research logic here is clear: transaction volume, especially sustained growth over multiple years, directly correlates with increasing user engagement and confidence, demonstrating a true embrace of the technology beyond fleeting interest.
Centralized exchanges (CEXs) in Latin America aren’t just transactional platforms. They’re the backbone of financial infrastructure, connecting users to digital assets and ensuring market liquidity. Right now, 68.7% of all crypto activity still flows through these centralized hubs.
Why? Because they’re easy to use, trustworthy, and have the liquidity people need—even for newcomers. Binance alone commands 54% of CEX trading volume, but local platforms are just as vital. Think of Argentina’s Lemon (with a 15% domestic market share), Mexico’s Bitso, and Brazil’s Ripio Mercado Bitcoin.
These localized exchanges are not just replicating global models. They are often intricately tailored to specific national regulatory landscapes and cater to distinct local user preferences, including local currency pairs and familiar payment methods. Bitso's remarkable achievement of processing over $25.2 billion in transaction volume in 2024 further solidifies its dominant position and underscores the effectiveness of a localized approach.
The strategic implementation of a multi-chain approach by these platforms provides a particularly insightful glimpse into the market's maturity, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of each blockchain's unique strengths and how they align with user needs:
Ethereum (Ethereum), as the pioneering and most secure smart contract platform, is globally acknowledged for its unparalleled security and institutional-grade stability, making it the unequivocal choice for high-value on-chain settlements. The research logic here is that for large, critical financial transfers and complex Decentralized Finance (DeFi) operations, the premium on security and an established track record outweighs concerns about higher transaction fees.
Tron (TRON), in stark contrast, has emerged as the dominant network for low-cost USDT (Tether) payments across Latin America. Its rapid transaction speeds and remarkably low fees are a decisive advantage, positioning it as an incredibly efficient conduit for high-volume, small-value USDT circulation. This focus highlights a market driven by daily transactional needs where cost-efficiency and speed are paramount, particularly for remittances and micro-payments.
Solana (Solana) and Polygon (Polygon), both lauded for their high throughput and cost-effectiveness, are pivotal in driving the expansion of retail flows. Solana's near-instant confirmations and extraordinary transaction capacity make it ideally suited for high-frequency, smaller retail payments and the burgeoning GameFi sector. Polygon, an essential Ethereum scaling solution, delivers faster and cheaper transactions while maintaining seamless compatibility with the vast Ethereum ecosystem, making it a highly favored choice for widespread DeFi and NFT (Non-Fungible Token) retail applications. Their widespread adoption powerfully illustrates a strong and growing demand for highly efficient and convenient crypto payment solutions capable of handling a massive volume of granular transactions.
Stablecoins have become the bedrock of Latin America’s crypto economy. They’re the answer to currency devaluation and persistent inflation, serving as both a transaction medium and a reliable store of value. The report projects that by July 2025, USDT and USDC will account for over 90% of tracked exchange volumes.
In economies where inflation erodes purchasing power, dollar-pegged stablecoins offer stability and a bridge for cross-border payments. In Argentina, USDT and USDC made up 72% of all crypto purchases in 2024—clear evidence of how urgent the need for stable alternatives really is
But it’s not just about USD-backed stablecoins. Local fiat stablecoins are booming. Brazil’s BRZ, pegged to the real, saw 660% year-over-year volume growth, meeting local demand for regulated crypto assets and easing foreign exchange friction.
Even more dramatically, Mexico's MXN-pegged tokens registered an astonishing 1,100x year-over-year surge in volume. This extraordinary expansion highlights the immense demand for local fiat-backed crypto assets, a trend deeply intertwined with the burgeoning cross-border remittance market – where efficiency and lower fees are paramount – and the increasing adoption of local digital payment solutions that bypass traditional banking frictions, offering greater financial inclusion
The report's viewpoint here is critical: unlike in developed markets where stablecoins primarily serve as a crypto-native "dollar" for on-chain value storage and trading, in Latin America, they have achieved unprecedented penetration into off-chain payment systems, becoming a true medium of exchange for everyday life.
As crypto adoption spreads, conversion between fiat and crypto is getting smoother and easier, lowering barriers for newcomers. It’s no longer just about centralized exchanges—decentralized protocols and new infrastructure providers are starting to play a transformative role.
Platforms like PayDece and ZKP2P aren’t simply services; they’re permissionless, peer-to-peer systems that let users exchange fiat and crypto directly, without intermediaries. In regions where financial services are scarce or mistrusted, this decentralized approach offers genuine freedom and resilience.
Capa, as an infrastructure provider, is working to offer compliant, efficient fiat on-/off-ramp solutions to a range of crypto projects, plugging them into local banking and payment networks. These non-exchange platforms processed almost $60 million in transaction volume, with multi-chain access that gives users flexibility and choice—making it easier than ever to move between crypto and local fiat economies.
The bottom line: accessibility and optionality are the key drivers of mass adoption, and these on/off-ramps are delivering just that.
One of the most exciting trends is the evolution of Latin American payment apps from basic tools to full-fledged crypto-native digital banks. In places where traditional banking is plagued by high fees, bureaucracy, geographic limits, and a lack of trust, huge numbers of people remain “unbanked” or “underbanked.” This is fertile ground for crypto-powered innovation.
Platforms like Picnic, Exa, and BlindPay are at the vanguard of this revolution, fundamentally reshaping how individuals manage their finances. Picnic, for example, is not just about facilitating stablecoin balances; it brilliantly integrates savings functionalities and, remarkably, enables frictionless real-world spending through groundbreaking integrations like the Visa stablecoin card.
This card, linked to a self-custody wallet, is a world first: users in Brazil can spend stablecoins seamlessly wherever Visa is accepted. Behind the scenes, the system liquidates the needed crypto and pays merchants in fiat, making crypto spending as easy as using a traditional card.
The report is less specific about Exa and BlindPay, but it’s easy to see their strategic importance. Exa likely focuses on user experience and easy asset management, perhaps integrating DeFi protocols for yield generation. BlindPay seems to prioritize privacy, possibly using zero-knowledge proofs for compliant, anonymous transactions.
These platforms aren’t just for crypto enthusiasts—they’re solving real problems for everyday people, especially a young, mobile-first population eager for digital solutions and less attached to legacy banking.
While Latin America’s crypto journey is unique, comparing it to African markets reveals both parallels and differences. Both continents face currency instability and inflation, driving demand for stablecoins as a financial lifeline. In Nigeria, stablecoins make up about 40% of the crypto market, serving as an inflation hedge. Nigeria alone processed $59 billion in crypto transactions in 2024. Mexico’s crypto adoption is similarly driven by remittances, with Bitso handling $6.5 billion in remittances in 2024—10% of the total US-Mexico corridor.
In both regions, crypto and stablecoins fill crucial gaps—efficient cross-border payments and protection against inflation. Financial instability spurs alternative systems. While the drivers are similar, each market has its own scale, local champions, and usage patterns, shaped by unique social and economic realities.
The big takeaway: these are diverse, independent crypto ecosystems, evolving locally but sharing some common DNA.
Conclusion
All the evidence points to one thing: Latin America has moved from a speculative crypto market to a region where digital assets are part of daily financial life. The explosive growth in exchange volumes, the broad adoption of both USD and local stablecoins, the rise of seamless on-/off-ramps, and the emergence of crypto-native digital banks all show that crypto is deeply woven into the region’s routines.
As stablecoins gain ground as the preferred medium for everyday transactions in Latin America, platforms like AllScale are redefining how businesses and entrepreneurs operate in the region. AllScale’s payroll and invoicing tools allow companies and freelancers to send and receive payments instantly in USD-pegged or local stablecoins—sidestepping the high fees and inefficiencies of conventional banking.
At the same time, social commerce platforms powered by AllScale are harnessing the stablecoin infrastructure to facilitate secure, frictionless payments between buyers and sellers, driving greater financial inclusion and trust throughout digital marketplaces. By seamlessly integrating payroll, invoicing, and social commerce with Latin America’s dynamic stablecoin ecosystem, AllScale is helping reshape the way people work, transact, and thrive in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
This isn’t just technological progress—it’s a practical toolkit for people and businesses struggling with economic uncertainty. It marks the arrival of a more decentralized, efficient, and inclusive financial future, with Latin America firmly at the forefront of global crypto innovation.
Disclaimer: This directory is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always verify information from primary sources and conduct your own research before making investment decisions.
AllScale is a financial technology developer, not a bank and does not provide digital assets custodian services.
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