Stablecoins kept Latin America's crypto activity growing as global market value halved

A stablecoin transfer is worth the same number of dollars whether bitcoin rallies or halves. So when Chainalysis reports market value down about $2.1 trillion and measured transaction activity down only 1.6% ^[1][2], part of the gap comes from the mix of assets being moved. The firm calls stablecoins the main shock absorber ^[18]. A year in which traffic moves toward dollar tokens will show steadier dollar volume than prices alone would predict. Globally, cross-border stablecoin value rose 77.5% to $220.3 billion, with typical payments near $3,000 ^[10].

Brazil is the cleanest test. Its stablecoin activity rose 495% ^[11], yet its total volume slipped 1.6% to $252.5 billion ^[7], so the rest of its crypto activity must have contracted ^[6]. Part of what remained changed venue. After the central bank raised capital requirements for payment firms, domestic exchanges' share of inflows went from 1.5% to 12.5%, according to Chainalysis ^[14]. (The published totals put Brazil at 42.5% of regional activity, a little under the 43.7% the report states ^[4][7].)

Take Brazil out and the rest of the region grew faster than the headline figure. The 9.8% rise implies about $540.8 billion a year earlier, and Brazil's decline implies it started near $256.6 billion ^[1][2]. The rest of Latin America therefore went from roughly $284.2 billion to $341.3 billion, a gain of about 20% ^[3]. Not all of it is payments. Mexico's 25.5% rise to $77.6 billion ^[8] tracks remittance corridors, and its monthly cross-border stablecoin flows reached $1.8 billion, four times the early-2024 pace ^[15]. Venezuela more than doubled to $39.1 billion ^[8] while its crypto outflows rose 891.7% in a single quarter after Nicolas Maduro's arrest ^[16].

Holders also shrank their positions and handed them to custodians. Self-custodied balances in the region fell 66.7%, against a 28% decline at services, leaving platforms with 71.2% of regional balances against a 68% global average ^[12]. Inside personal wallets, bitcoin's share fell 78% while stablecoins rose 66% ^[13].

The rebuilt index blends those flows with holdings. It weights service inflows, on-chain balances, domestic peer-to-peer transfers and cross-border flows equally, then combines them with a geometric mean ^[4]. Nigeria leads both transfer pillars and ranks third. The United States ranks second on inflows and balances despite placing 11th and 20th on the two transfer measures ^[6].

I think activity is the better gauge of demand in this data. What it gauges in Latin America is demand for dollar settlement and for protection from inflation, currency swings and capital controls ^[16][17], and that demand can grow while token prices fall. The counter-case is that some of what the report counts as adoption is relocation and flight: Brazilian inflows moved to domestic exchanges because a rule changed ^[14], and Venezuelan money moved after Maduro's arrest ^[16]. The thesis fails if an asset-level split of the $593.8 billion ^[3] shows non-stablecoin volume holding level in dollars through the halving. At half the price, that would mean about twice as many units changed hands ^[7]. The published summary does not include that split.