The market for stablecoins has been growing fast and making its way into the global settlement industry. The increased maturity of the market suggests that the blockchain infrastructure is assured of handling economic activity from Latin America and around the world. Circle, a stablecoin issuer, posted on X about how Latin America embraced digital finance.
Circle pointed out that according to Mastercard, 51% of Latin American consumers have made purchases using digital currency, and one-third of them have used stablecoins for everyday purchases. Furthermore, they think that in the coming years, more and more businesses, along with billions of people, will turn to the new and regulated blockchain-based financial services. As per reports, from mid-2021 to mid-2022, Latin American countries received $562 billion in digital currency value. In addition, it was reported that in 2022, the global stablecoin settlement exceeded $7 trillion compared to the $14 trillion settled at Visa and Mastercard.
Although North America headed the global adaption to the Internet, Latin America is now taking the lead in adopting digital currencies and financial technology. The reasons for this include the region’s lack of analog financial services, a huge population of nearly 658 million, and a quarter of the population being younger. This gives Latin America a huge advantage over regions with aging populations.
Another major reason for Latin America’s lead in adopting new financial technologies and stablecoin is its huge developer base. With nearly a million developers in the region, new homegrown fintech and neobanks are providing improvements to the financial sector. These fintech companies are associated with lower income inequality as more than three-quarters of their customers are previously unbanked and SMEs. Due to the regulatory measures and strong demand, there are over 2500 fintech platforms in Latin America.
In a recent development, Circle announced the launch of its faucets for USDC and EURC, which are US dollar and Euro-pegged stablecoins. Faucet is a platform where developers can test their blockchain applications and conduct trials before launching on the network.
