Mounting cryptocurrency adoption in Latin America is drawing investment capital into the region, signifying that growing interest among its citizens is leading to attractive opportunities for both businesses and investors.
In a solid year for financial technology investments, flows to cryptocurrency firms in Latin America spiked tenfold from just $68 million in 2020 to over $650 million as of last year, according to industry data collected by the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America, or Lavca. More extensive flows into the sector come as private capital funding to Latin America expanded rapidly last year, reaching $15.7 billion in VC funding. Some $6.1 billion were deployed to companies in the financial technology space or fintech. The largest recipient of those funds was a newly minted financial technology unicorn, Mercado Bitcoin, a leading regional crypto exchange from Brazil that saw its business jump by 530% last year to trade some 40 billion reais in crypto during the previous year.