Central Bank of Bolivia Registers Record Use of Virtual Assets Amidst Dollar Scarcity

The Central Bank of Bolivia revealed that the use of virtual assets skyrocketed during the first semester of 2025, increasing more than sixfold compared to 2024’s figures. Additionally, operations grew twelve times since last July.

Central Bank of Bolivia Reveals Virtual Assets’ Volumes Rose Over 600% in the First Half of 2025

The use of cryptocurrency assets in Bolivia’s financial payment system has skyrocketed, indicating a growing preference for these instruments. Data from the Central Bank of Bolivia confirm the increased adoption of virtual assets, reporting record figures since June 2024.

In a press release, the bank highlighted the growth of these activities, reporting that the volumes settled with these assets had risen by 630% in the first semester of 2025 compared to the same period last year.

The volumes rose from $46.5 million during 2024’s first semester to $294 million during 2025’s same period, and accumulated nearly $430 million since June 2024. The number of operations also rose 12 times, reaching over 10,000 transactions.

The central bank stated that these numbers reflect “the effectiveness of the issuing entity’s policies in its goal of generating alternatives so that Bolivians can continue conducting foreign currency transactions (remittances, small purchases, and payments, among others) for the benefit of micro and small entrepreneurs.”

In June 2024, the bank lifted a blanket ban on the use of virtual assets in conjunction with its traditional payment system, opening the doors for the adoption of cryptocurrency and stablecoin-based payments. Since then, as the report shows, Bolivia has become a crypto hotbed, likely due to stablecoin usage as a dollar proxy.

The announcement comes in a context of a dollar scarcity acknowledged by President Luis Arce, who recently stated that the country had no chance of offering dollars to the local exchange market.

Arce declared:

Today we live day to day. All the dollars we have are basically for fuel, debt payments, and all that. We don’t have enough left over to physically face the foreign exchange market additionally.

Even so, Bolivia banned its state-owned oil company from using stablecoin to purchase fuel in foreign markets in May, aiming to curb stablecoin exchange rate distortions.

Read more: Central Bank of Bolivia Unbans Bitcoin From the Nation’s Financial Ecosystem

Read more: Bolivia Bans State Oil Company From Using Crypto for Energy Settlements