Verda report warns LATAM stablecoin liquidity rests on 16 firms

Latin America’s stablecoin economy has plenty of storefronts. It has very few warehouses behind them.

A new report from Varys Capital and Verda Ventures mapped 494 companies in the region’s stablecoin ecosystem. Only 16 focus primarily on wholesale liquidity, corporate treasury and credit. Those three functions keep the whole machine moving, and the researchers argue that the system’s weak point sits right there.

“Fragility in the system is concentrated in its thinnest layer.”

A crowded front end, a narrow back end

The research draws on Verda’s Stablescape database. It was published in early October 2026.

The headcount reveals an imbalance. Wallets, payment apps and consumer-facing platforms make up most of the 494 firms. The companies that convert stablecoins into local fiat at scale are far fewer. So are the firms that manage corporate treasuries or extend credit. They account for fewer than one in thirty firms in the dataset.

Verda Ventures partner Amit Chu described the mechanics behind that bottleneck. He said many firms in the ecosystem trade liquidity, but only a small number actually hold and manage the underlying risk on their own books.

Instead, Chu said, many companies pass their currency risk along to a select group of trading desks and exchanges. A fintech app may look independent on the surface. Underneath, it may lean on the same handful of counterparties as its competitors.

According to Chu, a failure at a single major provider could cause real operational damage. Cash-outs to local bank accounts could slow, and spreads could widen.

Why the region leans so hard on stablecoins

Businesses and individuals across the region have turned to dollar-pegged tokens for payments, savings and cross-border transfers. Much of that demand comes from sharp volatility in local currencies.

Annual stablecoin transaction volumes in the region are reported to reach into the hundreds of billions. Business-to-business payments make up a particularly large share. Companies are using stablecoins to pay suppliers and settle invoices across borders.

On-ramps and off-ramps remain a persistent bottleneck. These are the services that move money between traditional bank accounts and stablecoins. Sending a token across a blockchain takes seconds. Turning it into pesos or reais in a local account still depends on the liquidity desks the report identifies as scarce.

What this means for users, builders and investors

For businesses relying on stablecoins for payroll or supplier payments, counterparty concentration becomes a practical concern. A company might use one app for collections and another for payouts. It could still be exposed to the same liquidity desk through both.

Investors face a different calculation. The report highlights an underbuilt segment of the market. Wholesale liquidity, treasury management and credit are less glamorous than consumer wallets. They are also where the system’s dependencies are concentrated.

What to watch next is whether the number of firms in that thin layer grows in future editions of the Stablescape data. Movement from 16 toward a deeper bench would signal that infrastructure is catching up with adoption. A flat count while transaction volumes keep climbing would suggest the bridge is carrying more traffic without getting any wider.