Bolivia is studying whether USDT can circulate with the boliviano and U.S. dollar as Venezuela’s Binance P2P market surges and an Argentine judge freezes wallets tied to Libra.
Bolivia is studying whether Tether’s USDT can be integrated into its financial system as the country grapples with a severe foreign-currency shortage following the 2024 lifting of its crypto ban. Economy and Public Finance Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza said the government is considering a system in which USDT would circulate alongside the boliviano and the U.S. dollar, but said Bolivia still lacks the regulatory framework needed to implement such a change immediately and would need to align any move with international standards. Espinoza said the central bank’s reversal of the crypto ban was made out of desperation and without broader planning as USDT increasingly served as a dollar proxy. Trading volumes rose more than 600% in the first six months of 2025 after the 2020 ban was lifted in June 2024. The development comes as crypto-based dollar access is becoming more important across parts of Latin America. In Venezuela, Ecoanalitica estimated that Binance peer-to-peer trading volumes reached USDT 1.389 billion between June 11 and July 13, or nearly 44 million USDT a day, making the market one of the country’s main foreign-exchange channels. Alejandro Grisanti, Director and Founding Partner at Ecoanalitica, said the activity shows Binance has moved beyond a niche market, with volumes equal to 88% of all foreign-currency sales executed by the central bank in June and 75% of monthly oil exports. In Argentina, Federal Judge Marcelo Martinez ordered the identification and freezing of wallets linked to Libra after a Federal Police cybercrime report traced millions of dollars in transfers across several crypto networks. The order covered eight wallets labeled as the “Libra team,” including four that consolidated nearly $57 million into an address that had previously been blocked and later released by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Investigators said fund flows also passed through an interoperability protocol into a Tron address, with at least 10 of 17 traced movements passing through Binance and other linked wallets tied to Bybit, OKX and Bitfinex.