Crypto: Argentine Exchange Ripio Bets On Peso Stablecoins Amid Cautious...

One of Argentina's longest‑running exchanges, Ripio, is betting on local currency stablecoins and tokenized bonds to drive a decade‑long boom in tokenized money across Latin America.

Argentine exchange Ripio is leaning into local currency stablecoins and tokenized bonds as CEO Sebastián Serrano braces for what he expects to be a “lateralized” or down year for crypto in 2026 — but a decade-long boom for stablecoins.

Founded in 2013, Ripio has shifted from a pure retail exchange into a B2B infrastructure provider serving banks, fintechs, and big platforms like Mercado Libre (Latin America’s answer to Amazon).

The exchange now offers its own dollar stablecoin, Criptodólar (UXD), and a new range of local fiat-backed stablecoins, including the Argentine peso‑pegged wARS, the Brazilian real-pegged wBRL, the Mexican peso-pegged wMXN, and a tokenized version of Argentina’s most‑traded sovereign bond, AL30, which Serrano says traded “more than a million units” on the Sunday of the last Argentinian election in October, 2025.

​“The most liquid assets [like sovereign debt] are going to be the ones that get tokenized first,” he told Cointelegraph, adding that tokenizing the dollar was only the first step to bringing more of the real economy onchain, from horses to real estate.

Ripio’s local stablecoins are live on the Ethereum mainnet, Base, and World Chain, with World App integrating most deeply so far, with roughly $200,000 in transaction volume for wARS in its launch month, December 2025, and about $160,000 so far in January.

Serrano calls the initial traction “very promising,” but concedes that the goal for Ripio’s local currency stablecoins is “at least $100 million in AUM by the end of the year.”

This model of pairing local stablecoins with virtual local bank accounts is designed to fix what Serrano sees as a “crappy” user experience (UX) in non‑custodial wallets that force users into clunky “buy” flows and immediate foreign exchange (FX) losses when converting into dollar stablecoins.

By enabling users to convert local currency one‑to‑one into local stablecoins, Ripio aims to make the first step as simple as possible, without an upfront FX hit.

Related: Stablecoins will remain ‘indispensable’ in Argentina under new president — Ripio CEO

Source: CoinTelegraph