🌎 Our expectations for crypto in Latam in 2025

“The year of LATAM”

AuthorAuthor

Frontera EC & Abraham Rivv
January 10, 2025

👋 Hi welcome to Frontera, the newsletter dedicated to showcasing the reality of crypto in Latam. Join industry leaders from The Ethereum Foundation, Binance, Crypto.com, dYdX and others to understand how Latin America has become one of the most dynamic and promising markets in the crypto world and how you can address this market. 

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If you want to build products, invest, or grow in LATAM, this is your place. 

You can listen the full episode here.

This edition is presented by Bando

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🔮 Our expectations for crypto in Latam in 2025

Hi! And welcome to 2025 “The year of LATAM” 🔥

Today I want to explore the possible crypto events that the Frontera team expects to happen in LATAM this 2025, from regulations to regional adoption.

(Everything is based on the data we have shared with you in all newsletters).

More and more stablecoins adoption

It’s a fact that stablecoins are what have propelled countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and Mexico to the top 15 countries with the highest crypto adoption, making LATAM the second-fastest growing region in terms of adoption worldwide.

In 2025, we expect adoption to continue rising due to the utility these coins offer for sending remittances in Mexico, where the USA-Mexico remittance corridor is the second largest in the world, reaching a record of $66 billion USD in 2023, and for protecting money from inflation in countries like Venezuela and Argentina.

As the use of stablecoins increases in the region, we’ll begin to see regulations emerge in countries like Mexico, Argentina, or Brazil, promoting the use of leading stablecoins in the region.

Regulation and CBDCs

Just as we mentioned earlier, the more stablecoin adoption grows, the more regulations governments will implement, as seen in Brazil and Argentina. Not only that, but countries will also want to create their own CBDCs to have a piece of the pie.

Here are the 3 regulatory events we can expect in 2025:

  1. Argentina and crypto deregulation: Under Milei’s presidency, deregulation is expected to encourage cryptocurrency adoption, both at the institutional and individual levels. This is a fact, as Milei has a deregulation department that eliminates between 1 and 5 regulations daily.

  2. Brazil to launch DREX: As we discussed in the in-depth analysis of DREX, this CBDC, which integrates Microsoft and Chainlink technologies, is still in its pilot phase and will extend into 2025 for its phase 2 testing. If all goes well, it will successfully launch its CBDC this year and start capturing part of the 70% of international crypto transactions that currently flow through the country.

  3. New countries implementing regulations: While we’ve been following regulatory advancements in El Salvador, Argentina, and Brazil, other countries will now be forced to create regulatory frameworks due to the increasing crypto adoption. For example, Bolivia, after years of banning cryptocurrencies, has now opened its doors to them through its central bank.

Some people fear regulation, but in part, it’s necessary to have clear rules and build products without the fear of committing an “illegal” act and ending up in jail. So, these upcoming advances will lay fertile ground for crypto startups.

New crypto companies being born and expanding in Latam

With increasingly clearer regulations, we can expect more players to emerge or expand into LATAM, as cryptocurrency transaction volumes continue to grow (42.5% YoY growth last year).

In fact, it's already happening:

  • Binance is acquiring new licenses in Brazil, enabling it to acquire local startups.

  • Bitget has obtained licenses to operate in El Salvador and will establish a local team in the country.

  • Coinbase has become the #1 crypto app in Brazil and revealed that it’s one of its priority markets.

  • New protocols are emerging from LATAM, like Bando and Sati.

The region is becoming an attractive hub for crypto startups. Why? Simply because crypto solves many problems here, such as remittance transfers and economic instability.

Now, combine a more advanced regulatory framework + new products entering the region = greater adoption.

Latin America adds BTC to balance sheet

El Salvador was the pioneer in establishing Bitcoin as legal tender, and while we’re not saying that more LATAM countries will follow its example exactly, they will begin to explore Bitcoin as a reserve asset.

In fact, Brazil and Argentina are already considering this possibility following El Salvador’s resounding success, with a return of over 100% since it started investing in Bitcoin.

Adding to this, the FOMO that will arise when Trump starts using Bitcoin as a reserve asset for the United States creates the perfect environment for more countries to join the trend, not wanting to be left behind.

2025 will be the year of LATAM. Still have doubts? 😎

With 💜 Rivv, Ab, Santiago & Cush.

📰 Latam Crypto News 📰

Key stories of crypto in LATAM this week

Satoshi Tango partners with Depay to enable crypto payments using QR codes in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. This integration bridges crypto with daily commerce, offering secure, instant transactions in local currency, expanding crypto's real-world utility across the region.

🇧🇷 Brazil

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, obtained its 21st global license, becoming the first exchange with a broker-dealer license in Brazil. This marks a major step in Latin America's crypto adoption, allowing Binance to acquire São Paulo-based investment platform Sim;paul and offer expanded financial services.

Brazil's tax authority now tracks digital transactions over R$5,000 ($818 USD) for individuals and R$15,000 ($2,453 USD) for entities. Financial institutions must report these semiannually to combat tax evasion.

🇲🇽 Mexico

🇲🇽 Mexico's economy to grow 1.2% in 2025
Mexico's economy is set for gradual recovery with 1.2% growth in 2025, following a 1.4% rise in 2024. Inflation decreases and flexible monetary policy are expected to boost consumption and investment, fostering economic activity in the coming years, according to the OECD.

🇦🇷 Argentina

Ripio integrates LaChain with ZKsync’s Elastic Network, enhancing scalability and innovation in the crypto ecosystem. Through this upgrade, LaChain now built on the ZK Stack, will power startups, enterprises and developers in LATAM with scalable, secure and cost-effective technology. 

This means being able to process up to thousands of transactions per second and unlocking global opportunities for regional projects

🇵🇪 Perú

Over 285,000 Peruvians started using Lemon in 2024, leveraging its crypto-to-Soles operations. Users enjoy cashback in Bitcoin and easy crypto payments.

🇨🇱 Chile

Lawmaker Gael Yeomans proposes creating a “Bancada Bitcoin” to study Bitcoin and develop inclusive, pro-crypto policies. This pioneering initiative could establish Chile as a leader in cryptocurrency adoption in Latin America.

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