LATAM Needs Crypto For Payments, Banking, Not Speculation: Bybit co-CEO

The Latin American area is tapping into blockchain-based providers for funds and entry to monetary providers, signaling that the crypto business serves extra than simply monetary speculators chasing the following memecoin pump.

Latin Americans are more and more utilizing cryptocurrency to exchange the area’s insufficient banking infrastructure, permitting them to facilitate digital funds and create stablecoin-based financial savings accounts.

“LATAM adoption is kind of excessive. Persons are utilizing stablecoins for each day life, so it’s an entire completely different market,” mentioned Patricio Mesri, co-CEO of cryptocurrency alternate Bybit’s Latin American division. “Crypto is definitely altering the lives of individuals. You see adoption in Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico rising quickly,” he informed Cointelegraph throughout an interview on the European Blockchain Conference 2025 in Barcelona.

A few of the most fascinating use instances embrace stablecoin funds to avoid the excessive remittance charges of the SWIFT banking community, and taking over crypto-based loans for main purchases akin to vehicles or houses, he mentioned.

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Fiat cash inflation is driving Latin American areas to stablecoins

Nations like Argentina, the place annual inflation surpassed 100%, have seen a surge in demand for US dollar-backed stablecoins, together with USDC (USDC) and USDt (USDT).

On native crypto alternate Bitso, stablecoin transactions accounted for 39% of whole purchases in 2024 as essentially the most sought-after digital belongings, in accordance with a report by Cointelegraph in March.

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The dearth of banking entry has additionally created systemic inefficiencies within the area, together with technological boundaries and excessive startup prices which might be slowing the stream of funding into Latin American capital markets. 

Nonetheless, the area’s liquidity latency points could also be improved by adopting blockchain-based devices, akin to real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, in accordance with an August report from Bitfinex Securities.

Tokenized merchandise may increase investor entry and produce extra capital to the area, as they’ll cut back issuance prices for capital raises by as much as 4% and cut back itemizing occasions by as much as 90 days, in accordance with Bitfinex.

“For a long time, companies and people, significantly in rising economies and industries, have struggled to entry capital by means of legacy markets and organisations,” mentioned Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether and chief expertise officer of Bitfinex Securities.

“Tokenisation actively removes these boundaries,” he mentioned, including that RWAs can unlock capital extra effectively than conventional monetary merchandise.

Latin America was the seventh-largest crypto financial system on the earth in 2023, trailing the Center East and North America (MENA), Jap Asia and Jap Europe, in accordance with blockchain analytics agency Chainalysis.