Unpacking Bolivia’s Stablecoin Push, Venezuela’s Massive P2P Market, and Argentina’s Libra Crackdown

Bolivia Evaluates Integrating USDT Into Its National Financial System Following Crypto Ban Reversal

On Friday, Jose Gabriel Espinoza, the Minister of Economy and Public Finance of Bolivia, stated that the Bolivian government was studying the inclusion of USDT, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, and charted the course of action it would have to follow to achieve this goal safely.

During a press conference, Espinoza clarified that Bolivia lacks a regulatory framework to allow these changes to happen immediately, even as the Central Bank lifted a ban on operations servicing digital assets. Espinoza assessed that this measure was taken out of desperation and without further planning, as USDT took on a pivotal role as a dollar proxy to help Bolivia address a foreign-currency scarcity crisis.

Indeed, after the 2020 ban was lifted in June 2024, trading volumes skyrocketed, with numbers rising over 600% in the first six months of 2025.

Espinoza explained that a system in which USDT circulates with the U.S. dollar and the Bolivian boliviano was under consideration. Nonetheless, several elements would have to be in place first for this to happen in compliance with international standards.

$1.38 Billion in One Month: How Venezuela’s Binance P2P Market Now Rivals Its Oil Exports

Alejandro Grisanti, Director and Founding Partner at Ecoanalitica, an economic consulting firm, announced that they had developed a new methodology to estimate the true size of Binance’s national peer-to-peer (P2P) market, stressing that the findings were remarkable.

According to Ecoanalitica’s estimates, P2P trading volumes on Binance, Venezuela’s most popular crypto platform, reached USDT 1.389 billion between June 11 and July 13, averaging nearly 44 million USDT per day.

Grisanti highlighted that these numbers prove Binance “has moved beyond being a niche market to become one of the country’s primary channels for buying and selling currency, reflecting the ongoing limitations of the traditional foreign exchange market.”

The volumes are relevant, as they represent 88% of all foreign currency sales executed by the central bank in June and 75% of the country’s monthly total oil exports.

Argentine Judge Orders Urgent Freeze of Crypto Wallets Tied to Controversial Libra Token

According to a document reviewed by local media, Federal Judge Marcelo Martinez ordered the identification and freezing of a set of wallets linked to Libra after receiving a report from the Federal Police’s Cybercrime Technical Department that reconstructed the trail of these through several crypto networks starting in May.

The move scrutinized eight wallets labeled as “Libra team,” which had direct involvement in the token launch after Argentina’s President Javier Milei promoted it on social media. The report recorded the moves of these wallets, with four consolidating nearly $57 million into an address that was blocked and released by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, after it determined that the funds were no longer at risk of dissipation.

The referenced wallet allegedly mixed funds using several other wallets. On May 10, there was a massive fund movement that funneled nearly 500K through an interoperability protocol into a Tron address. This wallet also tried to obfuscate its transactions, but out of 17 movements executed, at least 10 passed through Binance. Similarly, eight wallets are linked to Bybit, two to OKX, and two to Bitfinex.