Chainalysis’ LATAM Report: Brazil leads, Stablecoins Grow Across the Region
The 2026 Chainalysis LATAM crypto report has unveiled how the region has grown to become a hub for stablecoin usage in the world, as it presents the right conditions for these to thrive.
Brazil, which ranked first among the world’s crypto economies, received over $252 billion in crypto inflows, setting itself to become the prime crypto economy in the region too, almost tripling the value received by Argentina, the continental runner-up.
Nonetheless, this number represented a contraction for the Brazilian crypto economy compared to last year’s figures, meaning that the brunt of LATAM’s growth came from other economies, including Mexico (25.5%), Argentina (15.3%), Colombia (13.8%), and even Venezuela, which represented an outlier with a massive 107.2% growth.
Chainalysis also reported an increase in the percentage of stablecoins as part of the total crypto value moved in the region, representing 32.1% of the cross-border value moved and 22.1% of the within-country P2P exchanges.
While LATAM led the adoption of self-custody wallets, the region has outpaced the rest of the world in adopting centralized providers, likely due to clearer regulation and the need for secondary services offered by these operators. Only 28.8% of the funds held in the region are concentrated in self-custody wallets, compared to over 50% registered before 2022.
Gabriel Campa, head of digital assets at Towerbank, stresses that this phenomenon is related to the new needs of customers, both institutional and retail, in the region. “The common point across markets is that customers increasingly do not want their bank account in one place and their digital assets somewhere else. They want to receive, hold, convert, transfer, spend, and access financial products from the same relationship,” he assessed.
Nonetheless, nations like Venezuela have fled to crypto as a necessity, given the rise in inflation and devaluation levels of the national fiat currency. The perfect storm originated after January’s political shock, when leader Nicolas Maduro was arrested by the U.S. military on Venezuelan soil, a fact that prompted a vigorous recovery of the country’s crypto economy.
Analysts consulted by Chainalysis concur that after the event, there has been an influx of merchants and retail users leveraging crypto amid the political and economic uncertainty. “Rather than creating Venezuela’s stablecoin economy, the shock appears to have accelerated adoption of infrastructure and habits that were already in place,” the report stressed.
Another relevant activity hub is Mexico, which has become a stablecoin center for cross-border flows. Chainalysis found that 81% of all crypto activity in Mexico is stablecoin-focused, with monthly values reaching $1.8 billion in June 2026.