Crypto adoption is on the rise in South America, where Argentinians have opened at least two million crypto trading accounts, while Peruvian traders have broken new ground.
Per Infobae, a “number of industry sources reported” that Argentines have been increasing their crypto buying in recent months.
However, the media outlet noted that the experts agreed the market was in an “experimental stage” that meant that “two million accounts does not equate to two million active customers.”
The media outlet quoted Andrés Ondarra, the CEO of Bitso Argentina, as stating that the companys Argentinian operations have seen 375,000 customers join since it began operating a year ago.
Ondarra added that the coronavirus pandemic had led to “the adoption of cryptocurrencies by large companies, as well as new, different customer profiles.” He added: “A lot of liquidity has begun to be generated.”
The CEO claimed that the bitcoin (BTC)-peso market has in recent months risen to become “equivalent to half of what the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange moved” over the same period.
The reports authors noted that while a large portion of investors is still people looking to escape peso hyperinflation by “dollarizing” their fiat via BTC purchases, the picture is diversifying.
USD sales are still limited at banks and exchange counters, although a black market trade continues to boom in major cities. Instead, a growing portion of investors is said to be those who have grown disenfranchised with the traditional financial system – while “bitcoin fever” has caught up a lot of newer traders.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the region, Gestión has been attempting to answer the question: What are Perus most popular tokens besides BTC and ethereum (ETH)？
The mainstream media outlet reported that a Statista Global Consumer Survey report published last month showed that “Peru leads South America with a higher percentage of crypto users (16%)” than any other nation on the continent.
The media outlet stated that in the first two months of this year, Peruvian crypto users transacted some USD 16m worth of tokens, a figure that it noted exceeds the total worth of crypto transactions carried out during 2020.
Gestión quoted Gastón Krasny, the Director of Technology at the Argentine venture capital firm SeSocio, as stating that Perus most popular tokens outside the big two were cardano (ADA), stellar lumens (XLR), litecoin (LTC), XRP and EOS.