Latin America would benefit most with growing crypto adoption, says Uphold CEO

JP Thieriot, the head of Uphold, the multicurrency investment company, said that Latin America is seeking Bitcoin-based use cases amidst the massive crypto adoption in the region.

According to Thieriot, Latin America will benefit even more if the people start exchanging crypto tokens, fiat currencies, and the most awaited Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) on a large scale.

He said that Latin America would benefit the most from the growing crypto adoption.

BTC adoption by the small country El Salvador has contributed the most to this adoption rate. Besides, Venezuela and Colombia have also emerged as two of the biggest contributors to this mission. 

Uphold head said that 20% of the 7 million Uphold users are from Latin America, and the huge adoption rate is inviting big market players to look for the possibilities. He added that those who send or receive remittances would embrace BTC, but CBDCs could become more popular among merchants. He stated:

“Many business firms might understandably prefer something stable for transaction purposes, but investment portfolios would definitely be more benefited by Bitcoin.”

Commenting on CBDCs, Thieriot said that there is not a need for every country to have its own CBDC as it would be more convenient to adopt an existing fiat currency. However, he added that the Latam nations should aim for a functional and regulated system to easily exchange assets among themselves simply.

El Salvador’s contribution to BTC adoption in Latin America

Latin America, undoubtedly, has enjoyed a tremendous amount of growth in 2021 in the crypto world. Bitso, the Mexico- based cryptocurrency exchange platform, became the first unicorn in the region following May’s $250 million Series C capital raise.

As TheCoinRise reported, El Salvador is burning to increase BTC adoption. The government of the country has recently introduced a fuel subsidy to the people paying with BTC using Chivo wallet. President Nayib Bukele also announced his plans on building an animal hospital with the BTC profits.

Thieriot concluded by pointing out that the families dependent on remittances will benefit most from the crypto adoption as they won’t have to lose 10-20% of their income being siphoned off during money transfer.