Only 16 of the 494 companies mapped across Latin America's stablecoin ecosystem focus on wholesale liquidity, corporate treasury and credit, according to a joint report from Varys Capital and Verda Ventures published in early October 2026.

Built on Verda's Stablescape database, the study describes those three functions as the system's weakest point.

"Fragility in the system is concentrated in its thinnest layer," the report states, summarizing the imbalance.

How concentrated is the wholesale layer?

The 494-firm tally breaks heavily toward consumer-facing infrastructure. Wallets, payment apps and on-ramp services dominate the dataset. Firms that convert stablecoin balances into local fiat at scale, manage corporate treasuries, or extend credit account for fewer than one in thirty entries—roughly 16 of the 494.

Verda Ventures partner Amit Chu said the mechanics behind that bottleneck are direct. "Many firms in the ecosystem trade liquidity, but only a small number actually hold and manage the underlying risk on their own books," he said.

Companies that don't take that risk onto their own books pass the exposure along to a small group of trading desks and exchanges. A fintech application may look independent at the surface. Underneath, it can lean on the same counterparties as its competitors.

What happens if one major provider fails?

Chu said the consequences would surface quickly at the user level. Cash-outs to local bank accounts could slow, and spreads between on-chain and fiat values could widen across the region.

The report frames the configuration as a counterparty concentration problem for corporate users. A regional company might run one application for collections and another for payouts, and still expose itself to the same liquidity desk through both.

Why does Latin America lean so hard on stablecoins?

Annual stablecoin transaction volumes across the region run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, the report says. Business-to-business payments make up a particularly large share of that flow. Companies use dollar-pegged tokens to pay suppliers and settle cross-border invoices where local currency volatility has strained working capital.

On-ramps and off-ramps remain a persistent bottleneck. Sending a token across a blockchain takes seconds. Converting it into pesos or reais in a local bank account still depends on the small group of liquidity desks the report identifies as scarce.

Where does the infrastructure go from here?

Future editions of the Stablescape database will serve as the clearest gauge. Growth in the wholesale count beyond 16 as transaction volumes climb would signal that infrastructure is catching up with adoption.

A flat count against rising volumes would indicate the bridge is carrying more traffic without getting any wider. The next release of the dataset, and the count it carries, will set the metric that corporates, fintechs and remittance operators use to price and route stablecoin flows across the region.