Daniel Vogel of BitSo at the Blockstars podcast stated:  Mexicans make use of exchanges like BitSo to get the liquidity they need. Because of this BitSo has seen a significant amount of volume on the exchange, triggered by a significant amount of growth. In the current macroeconomic environment, remittances are a huge likelihood for Mexicans, and they have only increased as a result of this pandemic.

A lot of people in Mexico have lost their source of income. And, they are being held by their counterparties in the United States, so remittances have grown significantly and we definitely saw a big update in that volume between March and May of 2020.

When asked:  Along with the Peso volatility, is the lack of access to conventional financial systems or conventional financial products also a factor?

This is interesting specifically around the Defi craze that we are seeing today. Our Thesis is that absolutely there is a huge lack of access to traditional financial infrastructure in places like Mexico. You have a country of 125 million people where roughly about 25 to 30% of those are banks and a huge portion of those user banks simply to receive payments, and then we draw it at ATMs. So, there is very little financial literacy in the country and very little access to financial products or services.

And, we definitely have seen people who are borrowing or using interest bearing accounts paired with sort of like fleeing to the dollar and then basically pouring some of those stable coins in interest bearing accounts. However, we are not really seeing the retail customers use DeFi products simply because of the cost today involved in using those DeFi products.

Today, a transaction in Ethereum in September 2020, costs you nearly 20 dollars to me. So, that price has sought a good portion of Mexican individuals, who would like to put in maybe 100 dollars into one of these products or services; however, we believe the trend is very clear and as we solve those issues, we are going to see a lot more demand for these kinds of products and services increase in Mexico and Argentina.

And, those are essentially substitutes for conventional financial products, which are unavailable or that which don’t provide the types of services that your customers need?  Exactly they are provided, but if you are in Mexico you don’t get access to top-notch financial services.