Many LatAm migrant workers in the US are using crypto to send money home; crypto exchange Bitso says it processes $1B+ per year in US remittances sent to Mexico
When traditional exchanges closed during the pandemic, many workers turned to crypto to send remittances home. — • ACAPULCO, MEXICO Tweets: @gquaggiotto , @restofworld , @blackamazon , @apompliano , @danielrhamilton , @alexgonzor , @mazmhussain , @hansonohaver , and @mazmhussain Tweets: Giulio Quaggiotto / @gquaggiotto : “It is a tribute to how new crypto really is, despite all the recent media attention, that the lines between ideology, speculation, and practical finances can get so blurred” https://restofworld.org/... @pesa_africa @restofworld : A new wave of crypto users is here, and it's not the tech enthusiasts or white-collar financiers you'd expect. @andalalucha reports on why the experimental technology has taken off among migrants looking for a better way to send money back home https://restofworld.org/... @blackamazon : I'm never ever gonna forget that even amongst “international folks” people laughed when folks asked about migrants https://twitter.com/... Pomp / @apompliano : This is great coverage of bitcoin and digital currencies that goes against the Western world narrative. While the finance industry is trying to dunk on the world's best performing asset, bitcoin is improving lives of millions of people around the world. https://t.co/... Daniel Hamilton / @danielrhamilton : Totally chimes with my experience. I was - and I'm grateful for the tips - talked into buying Bitcoin by a succession of Pakistani cab drivers in London and Manchester. Far more entrepreneurial and willing to take a chance on innovation than “old Brits”. 🚀 https://twitter.com/... Alex Gonzlez Ormerod / @alexgonzor : Crypto will make or break the lives of the poorest. @Andalalucha writes about how migrants are adopting tech that most people don't understand. https://restofworld.org/... Murtaza M. Hussain / @mazmhussain : “They represent a new wave of crypto users who are not tech enthusiasts or white-collar financiers but rather working-class people whose livelihoods depend on a technology that is often seen as experimental.” https://restofworld.org/... Hanson O'Haver / @hansonohaver : really appreciated this woman's rebuttal to the suggestion that the structure of her crypto marketing group looks awfully familiar: “Life itself is a pyramid scheme.” https://restofworld.org/... Murtaza M. Hussain / @mazmhussain : “By the company's own reckoning, it already processes 2.5% of remittances going into Mexico — over $1 billion a year.” https://restofworld.org/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Bitso's $1B-a-year remittance volume marks the moment crypto stopped being a speculative asset for Latin American users and became plumbing: pandemic closures pushed US-based migrant workers onto crypto rails to send money home to Mexico. The Quaggiotto framing in the coverage — lines between ideology, speculation, and practical finance blurred — captures why this corridor matters more than trading-volume headlines.
This sits early in an arc the corpus traces forward: LatAm traders kept using crypto through the 2022 market crater because it solves local money problems, not because prices rose, while Argentine adoption ran through centralized intermediaries like Binance rather than self-custody.
First-order effects
- Bitso converts a crisis-driven workaround into recurring corridor volume, positioning itself as the default crypto rail on the largest remittance corridor into Mexico.
- Migrant workers gain a send-home channel independent of traditional exchange hours and storefronts, which failed them exactly when pandemic demand spiked.
Second-order effects
- Traditional money-transfer operators serving the US–Mexico corridor face fee-and-speed pressure from a rail whose costs do not scale with correspondent banking, forcing pricing responses on their core product.
- The flow concentrates in centralized intermediaries — the same pattern visible where Argentines use black-market cash but still route through Binance — meaning custody and compliance risk pools at a few exchanges rather than dispersing.
Third-order effects
- If usage holds after the original disruption ends, remittance corridors restructure around crypto-native intermediaries, pulling regulators into supervising exchange-based settlement as de facto payment infrastructure.
- The corridor also exposes crypto's dependency on cash-off ramps: as the sex-worker experience shows, value stored in crypto only helps if the last mile converts reliably — so payout liquidity, not blockchain throughput, becomes the binding constraint.
The trend: Crypto adoption across Latin America is being driven by practical settlement needs — remittances, capital controls, unstable currencies — and is consolidating around centralized intermediaries rather than ideological self-custody.