An Argentine who kept the equivalent of $10,000 in peso cash from 2016 to 2026 ended the decade with about $114 in US-dollar value. That nearly 99% loss explains why the dollar has entered everyday financial life across Latin America. Workers receive salaries in stablecoins, while businesses use digital dollars to collect revenue and pay foreign suppliers.
The Exodus Economy, a new report from BeInCrypto Intelligence, describes this as bottom-up dollarization. People remain at home while more of their financial activity moves beyond domestic banks. The protection behind those dollar balances varies widely.
More than 99% of tracked stablecoin withdrawal volume moved onward within 30 days. On Argentine wallet Lemon, the median withdrawal ranged from $150 to $270 during the first half of 2026. The average was $544 across 215,597 transfers.
Separately, Bitso's tracked stablecoin corridor was running at an annualized $31.5 billion in 2026. The figure measures gross, bidirectional movement rather than money permanently leaving the region. The activity looks more like a payment network than a savings vault.
The money arrives, then moves toward spending or operating costs. Antônia Souza, Visa's digital-currency director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said institutions still account for the largest flows. "The huge numbers that we are seeing on stablecoins are from institutional transactions and cross-border transactions, mainly B2B transactions." BeInCrypto audited 12 dollar-account products available to Latin American customers.
Only two placed customer balances in insured US bank deposits. The dollar label reveals little about the protection underneath it. A balance could represent an insured deposit, a stablecoin claim or an investment product.
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