Latin America’s cryptocurrency economy is expanding at breakneck speed. In the 12 months through mid-2024, crypto value received in Latin America surged by approximately 42.5% year-over-year (YoY) – one of the fastest growth rates globally. This outpaced growth in regions like Europe (~35%) and North America (~23%), reflecting a crypto boom led by countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.
According to Chainalysis, Latin America received about $415 billion in cryptocurrency volume between July 2023 and June 2024, accounting for roughly 9.1% of global crypto activity. Argentina and Brazil alone each saw around $90 billion in crypto inflows during that period. Four Latin American nations now rank among the top 20 globally in crypto adoption: Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Argentina all make the list. This high grassroots uptake underscores how deeply crypto has penetrated everyday financial activity in the region. From individuals seeking protection against inflation in Argentina to traders in Brazil and remittance receivers in Mexico, Latin Americans are embracing digital assets at a scale unmatched in most of the world. Such rapid growth has made Latin America the second-fastest expanding crypto market worldwide (trailing only the UAE , Saudi-Arabia and sub-saharan countries), cementing the region as a key focus of the global crypto revolution.
Paradoxically, Latin America’s crypto boom has not been met with comparable investment funding. Despite representing roughly 9% of global crypto transaction value, an increase of 1.8 percent in market share, which constitutes a notable 25% growth, the region attracted only about 0.5% of worldwide blockchain venture capital in 2024. This marks a steep decline from 2021, when Latin America secured approximately 1.5–1.7% of global blockchain VC funding.
The ecosystem is underfunded relative to its size.
The shortage of venture capital means Latin American crypto startups have had to become highly resilient and resourceful. With scarce funding available, many teams bootstrap for longer and reach significant milestones with minimal capital. When we visited Latin America and spoke with dozens of founders, it became clear that many blockchain startups are bootstrapped and organically growing by solving real and everyday problems faced by local communities. These startups typically generate revenues in the range of $1,000 to $10,000 per month without having raised a formal venture round. Their growth is driven by practical use cases and strong grassroots adoption, rather than aggressive fundraising strategies. This lean approach naturally filters out weaker ideas and only those with solid product-market fit and strong teams survive the gauntlet of limited capital. The result is a cohort of startups that are more battle-tested and efficient by necessity.
At Blockchain Founders Group, we believe that tailored accelerators and funding initiatives are key to unlocking the potential of the Latin American crypto ecosystem. That’s why BFG went to Bogotá and Buenos Aires in January to host pitch competitions and offer startups up to $100,000 in funding. We are closing the funding gap by scouting early-stage, revenue-generating startups across Latin America and connecting them with our strong network of European investors, who often show greater interest in traction-driven ventures than North America for example. By running these startups through our accelerator program, we validate and de-risk investment opportunities, creating a win-win situation: Latin American founders get the support they need to grow faster, and European investors gain access to high-quality, vetted leads.
Underlying Latin America’s crypto boom is a favorable demographic and technological landscape. The region’s population is young – median age around 31 – significantly lower than Europe (around 42) or the United States (around 38). Major markets skew especially youthful: the median age is about 29.6 in Mexico, 32.5 in Argentina and 32.5 in Colombia This young cohort is digitally native and quick to adopt new technologies like cryptocurrencies. In countries such as Mexico and Brazil, millions of people came online just in the past decade, leapfrogging straight to smartphones rather than desktops.
Indeed, Latin America is a predominantly mobile-first region. Affordable Android phones and widespread cellular networks have made smartphones the primary internet device for most citizens. Entire generations are accessing banking, payments, and now crypto exclusively through their mobile phones. This creates fertile ground for crypto wallets, mobile trading apps, and smartphone-based payment platforms to gain mass adoption. For example, easy-to-use mobile crypto apps can reach users who don’t own personal computers or have easy access to bank branches. The mobile paradigm lowers barriers to entry, allowing crypto services to spread rapidly via social networks and messaging platforms.
Additionally, Latin America benefits from a high degree of cultural and linguistic homogeneity that eases regional expansion. Spanish is the dominant language across most of Latin America (outside Brazil), meaning a fintech or crypto app launched in one Spanish-speaking market can relatively easily localize to others. A startup that finds success in, say, Colombia or Mexico can expand across Spanish-speaking LATAM with minimal translation effort, tapping into a combined market of over 400 million people who share language and cultural similarities. This is a stark contrast to regions like Asia, where startups must navigate a patchwork of languages. Moreover, the common language and cultural ties extend to the Hispanic diaspora in the United States and even to Spain, offering Latin American crypto companies a natural bridge to expand into the U.S. (the world’s largest crypto market) and European markets In effect, a product that works in one part of LATAM can scale to an entire continent and beyond. This regional scalability is yet another factor attracting entrepreneurs to build crypto solutions tailored to Latin American needs.
One of the most prominent use cases driving crypto adoption in LATAM is stablecoins – cryptocurrencies pegged to stable assets like the U.S. dollar. Latin Americans have flocked to stablecoins as a lifeline against inflation, currency devaluation, and costly remittances. The appeal is straightforward: a token like USD Coin (USDC) or Tether (USDT) holds its value in dollars, providing a safe harbor when local fiat currencies spiral downward. Nowhere is this more evident than in Argentina, where annual inflation hit 142.7% in late 2023, the highest in over three decades – and the peso lost around two-thirds of its value against the dollar in a year. With prices doubling every few months and the currency constantly being devalued, Argentines have sought refuge in dollar-pegged stablecoins to preserve their savings. Crypto exchanges in Argentina report huge spikes in USDT/USDC purchases whenever the peso takes a steep plunge. The same pattern holds in Venezuela, which has endured hyperinflation. Venezuelans increasingly use stablecoins and Bitcoin as an alternative to the collapsing bolívar. Stablecoins account for 56.4% of Venezuela’s crypto transaction activity, illustrating their importance as a financial refuge. In Colombia, stablecoins make up 66.0% of transaction volume – the highest share across the region – reinforcing their role as the preferred asset class for retail users facing unstable currencies. Stablecoins offer a rare degree of financial stability in these volatile economies, functioning as informal dollarization via crypto rails..
Stablecoins are also revolutionizing remittances in Latin America, a region that receives over $150 billion in remittance inflows annually (with Mexico alone accounting for ~$63 billion in 2023). Traditionally, sending money home from abroad via banks or money transfer operators is slow and expensive – fees can range from 5% to 10%, and transfers take days. Stablecoins are changing that. By moving dollars on blockchain rails, families can send and receive funds within minutes and at a fraction of the cost. Over the past year, stablecoin-based remittances have soared in popularity across LATAM. Chainalysis reports a 207.7% annual increase in stablecoin transaction value in Latin America from 2023 to 2024, far outpacing the growth of other crypto segments. In Mexico – the world’s second largest remittance recipient – stablecoins are now an integral part of the remittance pipeline. Crypto fintechs like Bitso have partnered with money transmitters to convert dollars into USDC/USDT, send them across the border, and cash out to local currency. Bitso alone handled $6.5 billion in US–Mexico crypto remittances in 2024, roughly 10% of the US-to-Mexico remittance corridor.Those funds moved via stablecoins and crypto rails, reaching recipients faster and with lower fees than traditional methods. This is a real-world example of crypto solving a longstanding problem: a Mexican family can receive digital dollars from the U.S. and either spend them as dollars or convert to pesos at better exchange rates than they’d get at a bank.
Crucially, stablecoin infrastructure in LATAM is maturing. In 2024, Circle (issuer of USDC) launched official operations in Brazil and integrated USDC with Brazil’s PIX and Mexico’s SPEI – the countries’ national instant payment networks. This allows businesses and individuals to on-ramp from local bank accounts directly into USDC and vice versa. For example, a user in Brazil can swap Brazilian reais for USDC through the banking system, then send USDC abroad or hold it as dollars without ever touching paper cash. As Circle noted, eliminating international wires can cut settlement times from days to minutes. Such developments indicate that stablecoins are becoming an accepted part of the financial landscape. Even traditional financial institutions are embracing them: in Brazil, stablecoin transactions over $1 million (likely driven by banks and corporations) jumped by 29.2% in late 2023,reflecting growing institutional adoption of stablecoins for cross-border trade and treasury operations. And in Mexico, major fintech platforms like Mercado Pago now use stablecoins under the hood for daily transactions, with some launching their own dollar-pegged tokens.
From hedging inflation to powering remittances, stablecoins have become an indispensable tool in Latin America. They deliver financial inclusion by giving anyone with a smartphone access to a dollar-based savings account. They also anchor the crypto ecosystem by providing a stable trading pair and on/off-ramp to fiat. As regulatory discussions advance (several countries are exploring stablecoin rules as part of crypto legislation), stablecoins are poised to play an even bigger role in Latin American finance – not just for remittances and saving, but also for everyday commerce, lending, and even salaries. Notably, Latin America already leads in one niche use: a recent study found 54% of global crypto salary payments occur in LATAM, as freelancers opt to be paid in stablecoins. All of this reinforces how demand for stability and dollars is fueling crypto adoption in the region.
Latin America’s crypto boom is a compelling story of grassroots-driven adoption: ordinary people and businesses harnessing digital assets to solve real problems – whether it’s shielding wealth from inflation, cutting the cost of remittances, or accessing financial services for the first time. This organic demand has made LATAM one of the most active crypto regions on the planet, with growth and innovation levels that rival or exceed more developed markets. Yet, the region remains underinvested and under-the-radar from a global investment perspective, creating a disconnect that savvy stakeholders are now starting to recognize.
For investors and industry players, Latin America represents a high-potential market that is still in its early innings. The combination of a young population, rapid tech adoption, and pressing financial needs means crypto can gain tens of millions of new users in the next few years across LATAM. Key use cases like stablecoins, payments, and DeFi are already validated here, but could scale 10x with proper support. The fact that Latin America captures a disproportionately small share of blockchain venture funding is not a reflection of poor opportunities, but rather of historical misperceptions and the lack of regional VC infrastructure. Correcting this imbalance – through dedicated funding initiatives, accelerator programs, and deeper engagement by global firms – could unlock outsized rewards. A dollar invested in a Latin American crypto startup goes further (and faces less competition) than the same dollar in Silicon Valley or Asia, given the dearth of alternative capital and the hunger for solutions.
Several developments hint that LATAM’s underfunding may soon change. The launch of Latin America-focused accelerators in 2024, the entry of companies like Circle and Coinbase into the market, and increasing crypto-friendly regulations are laying the groundwork for a more robust ecosystem. To fully realize the region’s promise, however, more bridges must be built: between Latin American entrepreneurs and global investors, between fragmented national markets into a cohesive regional market, and between the traditional finance sector and the crypto sector. Bridging these gaps will allow the latent demand in Latin America to blossom into a sustainable crypto economy that benefits tens of millions of people.
In summary, Latin America is a paradoxical crypto market – at once extremely vibrant in adoption yet comparatively overlooked in investment. It is a region where a taxi driver in Buenos Aires might hold stablecoins to preserve his family’s wealth, where a shopkeeper in El Salvador accepts Bitcoin, and where a Colombian developer might be building the next big DeFi protocol from her laptop. The ingredients for success are all here: large addressable markets, strong use cases, talent, and improving policy frameworks. As the world wakes up to Latin America’s crypto boom, the coming years could see the region move from the periphery of the blockchain industry to one of its central hubs. For those willing to engage with its nuances, Latin America offers a chance to participate in one of the fastest-growing and most impactful crypto stories in the world , where blockchain technology is already solving real-world problems today—making it less of a futuristic concept than in most westernized countries.
