This article was written by Mouloukou Sanoh, co-founder and CEO of MANSAa fintech platform for global payments and remittances through a liquidity infrastructure based on stablecoins. Mouloukou co-founded Cassava Network and led investments in Adaverse, a $100 million venture capital fund backed by Cardano. He also brings private equity experience from Jebsen Capital and has invested in startups such as Nestcoin, Bit2Me and Fonbnk. Of Guinean origin, raised in Greater China and with Dutch nationality, his global perspective is shaped by his personal experience with the inefficiencies of remittances.
Latin America is in the midst of a major infrastructure shift, and Brazil is at the center. Stablecoins have evolved from speculative instruments to become critical settlement rails for cross-border payments across the region. Brazil alone processes between $6 billion and $8 billion in monthly cryptocurrency volume, and stablecoins account for approximately 90% of that activity.
The vast majority of that figure corresponds to cross-border payments, B2B settlements and remittances processed by licensed companies that have compliance teams and regulatory obligations. Brazil is one of the clearest examples in the world of what happens when this infrastructure is consolidated on a large scale, although not without difficulties.
The cryptocurrency debate brewing in Brazil
In March, stablecoins made headlines when Brazilian Finance Minister Dario Durigan postponed a public consultation on the application of the IOF (the country’s tax on financial operations) to cryptocurrency transactions.
The proposal would have classified stablecoin transactions as currency exchange operations, subjecting them to tax rates of between 0.38% and 3.5%. Five of the largest sector associations in Brazil: ABcripto, ABFintechs, Abracam, ABToken and Zetta, which collectively represent more than 850 companies, have expressed concern about the proposal.
Regardless of how the delicate situation develops, the debate makes it clear that stablecoins are already mainstream infrastructure in Latin America. Twenty-five million Brazilians participate in the digital asset ecosystem. Only Nubank, with 131 million customershas integrated USDC directly on your platformand one in four of its new cryptocurrency investors chose stablecoins as their first investment. This infrastructure is already helping businesses and people move money across borders more efficiently.
What happens when transaction costs change?
Payments companies use stablecoins because they solve a specific operational problem that traditional banking rails create. Cross-border settlement through correspondent banking requires payment operators maintain pre-funded accounts in each target market they serve.
For a remittance company operating throughout Latin America, this means tying up significant working capital in accounts in multiple countries, when that capital could be used to grow operations or reduce fees for clients. This creates barriers to entry, limits competition and keeps costs high for the end user.
For example, a 2025 study commissioned by Mastercard on cross-border payments for SMEs in Latin America and the Caribbean found that correspondent banking fees represent between 40% and 60% of the total costs for banks that serve SMEs in cross-border transactions. Manual processing and regulatory compliance add another 40% or more.
Settlement with stablecoins remove that restriction. Transactions settle almost instantly without the need for prepositioned capital, which is why adoption among licensed payments operators has accelerated. That gain in efficiency is the reason this infrastructure exists.
Meanwhile, any tax structure that adds percentage points to each transaction it could affect what made these rails attractive in the first place. For payments companies operating on tight margins, the additional costs could be passed on to customers or make certain brokers unprofitable.
LATAM, a region on the move
There is significant capital waiting to flow into stablecoin infrastructure in Latin America, from payments operators looking to expand corridors, fintechs building access points for underserved markets, and institutional investors evaluating where to deploy resources. The right regulatory conditions will consolidate that flow and channel capital into jobs, services and financial access.
But the push toward mass cryptocurrency adoption is gaining steam across the region. The central bank of Argentina prepare to allow banks to offer cryptocurrency services for the first time in 2026. More than 22% of the Argentine population already uses cryptocurrencies, and the country moved 93.9 billion dollars in volume of cryptocurrency transactions between 2024 and mid-2025. Mexico and Colombia are also developing their own regulatory frameworks.
All of these nations are moving in the right direction, but Brazil really stands out as a leading jurisdiction in payments innovation. Pix, the central bank’s instant payments system, transformed household payments almost overnight after its launch in November 2020.
In a few years it became one of the most successful real-time payment systems on the planet, processing billions of transactions and incorporating approximately 71 million previously unbanked or underbanked Brazilians into the formal financial system. It worked because regulators built a framework that enabled innovation. Stablecoins are doing for cross-border payments what Pix did for domestic ones.
Average, but do it well
Brazil has been a pioneer in recognizing stablecoins as a differentiated category of infrastructure. The Virtual Assets Act of 2022 created a foundation that positioned the country as a serious jurisdiction for digital asset operations. The current debate is part of an ongoing process to define how this infrastructure fits into the broader financial system.
What matters is that the approach reflects what this technology actually does. Stablecoins are allowing money to move across borders more freely and efficiently than traditional rails allowed. They are reducing costs, decreasing friction and expanding access for businesses and individuals across the region.
The Brazilian cryptocurrency industry’s opposition to expanding the IOF to stablecoin operations deserves serious attention, and not just as a lobbying position.
The five major associations representing more than 850 companies are making a substantive legal argument: stablecoins are not fiat currency, and taxing them as if they were foreign exchange operations could violate both Brazil’s Constitution and its own Virtual Assets Law of 2022. That distinction matters. If the regulation contradicts the legal framework that a country has already built, it could cause confusion.
Beyond the legal issue, the practical risk is just as real. Imposing new transaction taxes on a sector that processes billions monthly would not only raise revenue, it would push activity abroad, slow the momentum Brazil has built and would undermine exactly the kind of innovation the country should be protecting. Brazil’s digital asset sector is one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world. Policies that penalize its growth instead of channeling it, they would be a strategic error.
The goal should be to build regulation that allows this infrastructure to continue fulfilling that purpose: helping companies grow, helping people access financial services, and reinforcing Brazil’s position as a leader in payments innovation throughout Latin America.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article belong to its author and do not necessarily reflect those of CriptoNoticias. The author’s opinion is for informational purposes and under no circumstances constitutes an investment recommendation or financial advice.