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Bitso, a Mexico-based cryptocurrency exchange with a presence in several countries of Latin America, has revealed the trends that its user base followed during 2023. Bitso Argentina CEO Julian Colombo disclosed that while Bitcoin was still the most popular cryptocurrency in the region, Argentines held over five times more stablecoins than the rest of Latam, making 60% of the crypto purchases in the country.
Bitso: Bitcoin Still King in Latam
Bitso, a Mexican cryptocurrency exchange with a presence in several countries in Latam, has dissected the trends that Latam users followed during 2023. Kicking off 2024 for the exchange, Bitso Argentina CEO Julian Colombo told Iproup that, for the most part, Latam was a bitcoin-centric region, with the first cryptocurrency being present in more than half of the wallets.
However, this behavior is less accentuated in countries like Argentina, where stablecoins have a significant penetration. Colombo pointed out that Argentina led dollar-pegged stablecoins purchases last year, accounting for over 60% of the purchasing volumes. This has to do with the country’s specific conditions and the inflation levels that Argentines have to deal with.
Colombo stated:
High inflation rates create an incentive for consumers to look for safe and fast options to protect their money from devaluation.
Colombo stressed that this particular behavior is only limited to Argentina, where the purchase of stablecoins is almost five times that of bitcoin. In contrast, in countries like Brazil and Mexico, stablecoins only represent a marginal part of the cryptocurrency portfolio of its users. “Mexicans, Colombians, or Brazilians are not interested in buying cryptos tied to the dollar as Argentines do,” Colombo declared.
Bitso’s data found that in Latam, 53% of all the volumes were held in bitcoin, followed by ether, which represented only 16%. Furthermore, stablecoins reached 5%. Nonetheless, this composition flips when analyzing Argentine wallets, which held 48% in bitcoin and 26% in stablecoins.
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