Latam Insights: Stablecoins Dominate Brazil’s $14.68B Crypto Market as Argentina Pushes Programmable Money

Welcome to Latam Insights, a compilation of the most relevant crypto news from Latin America over the past week. In this edition, crypto demand booms in Brazil, Argentina’s banking groups are building stablecoins, and the IMF calls for an overhaul of crypto regulation in Brazil.

Although the central bank statistics are not perfect, as they only account for volumes transacted by registered virtual asset service providers (VASPs), they indicate adoption has accelerated, particularly in June, when $2.54 billion in crypto was purchased compared to $1.48 billion in June 2025.

In May 2026, Brazilians purchased nearly $2.632 billion in stablecoins, a 158% increase compared to May 2025.

Fernando Rocha, Head of the Bank’s Statistics Department, told Valor Economico that these numbers indicate consolidation in the national crypto market, which has already gone through its initial phase.

BIND Group, a holding with over $2 billion in assets under management, which owns BIND Banco Industrial, would be developing a peso stablecoin through BEN, its in-house virtual asset service provider (VASP). The conglomerate also announced a partnership with Circle to provide institutional access to BEN customers, supporting payments and treasury use cases in compliance with local regulations.

Petersen Group, which also owns several regional banks, would be developing the second initiative through a subsidiary with the support of Lirium, a company providing crypto-as-a-service solutions for Banco Galicia and Brubank. This offering, named DIPE, has already matured and has its own whitepaper.

In its latest Financial System Stability Assessment report, published this month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) highlighted the massive growth of crypto financial rails and called for the definition of a regulatory framework to increase oversight of them.

The report found that crypto-based cross-border flows have been steadily growing since 2017, outpacing traditional capital flows. Most of these flows are driven by stablecoins, which have become a favorite among companies and retail due to efficiency and tax-related advantages.

Stablecoin flows are largely dependent on international and national investment indexes, just like the S&P 500, VIX, and even bitcoin prices, suggesting that these are influenced by investor reactions to these fluctuations. National numbers, including exchange rate fluctuations, interest rates, policy uncertainty, and changes in tax policy, also affect demand.