Argentine cryptocurrency exchange Ripio is making a strategic pivot towards local currency stablecoins and tokenized bonds, even as its CEO, Sebastián Serrano, predicts a "lateralized" or potentially down year for the broader crypto market in 2026. Serrano, however, foresees a "decade-long boom" for stablecoins, positioning them as the central financial innovation of the coming years.
Founded in 2013, Ripio has evolved from a retail-focused exchange into a B2B infrastructure provider for banks, fintechs, and major platforms like Mercado Libre. Its product suite now includes its own dollar stablecoin, Criptodólar (UXD), and a new range of local fiat-pegged stablecoins: the Argentine peso-pegged wARS, the Brazilian real-pegged wBRL, and the Mexican peso-pegged wMXN. The company has also tokenized Argentina's most-traded sovereign bond, AL30, which Serrano reported traded "more than a million units" on the day of the Argentine election in October 2025.
"The most liquid assets [like sovereign debt] are going to be the ones that get tokenized first," Serrano told Cointelegraph, framing dollar tokenization as merely the first step toward bringing vast swaths of the real economy onchain.
Ripio's local stablecoins are currently live on Ethereum mainnet, Base, and World Chain, with the deepest integration seen in World App. The wARS stablecoin saw approximately $200,000 in transaction volume in its launch month of December 2025 and about $160,000 in January 2026. Serrano called this initial traction "very promising," but stated the ambitious goal is to reach "at least $100 million in AUM by the end of the year."
The model pairs local stablecoins with virtual bank accounts, aiming to fix what Serrano describes as a "crappy" user experience in non-custodial wallets that forces immediate foreign exchange losses when converting to dollar stablecoins. By enabling a one-to-one conversion from local currency to a local stablecoin, Ripio seeks to eliminate that upfront FX hit.
Echoing this focus on stablecoins' foundational role, Ripple President Monica Long has published a 2026 outlook that places stablecoin integration at the heart of the next adoption wave. Long argues that stablecoins are moving from pilot programs into real payment flows, with integration into existing financial rails as the top priority.
She highlighted examples like USDC settlement for merchants as evidence that stablecoin rails are being adopted within core corporate payment systems. Long's outlook, which has circulated since December 2025, emphasizes that crypto is becoming finance's "operating layer" rather than a speculative side bet. She specifically pointed to cross-border and business-to-business (B2B) payments as likely first use cases to standardize on stablecoin settlement, driven by demands for faster settlement to improve cash-flow management.
This institutional perspective is reinforced by Deloitte's 2026 banking outlook, which flagged stablecoins as a disruptive force in payments that traditional banks can no longer ignore. Long's framing suggests the market will increasingly reward networks and firms that can seamlessly plug into real-world, compliance-ready payment flows.
Both executives' comments arrive amid a complex regulatory and economic landscape. Serrano noted that while Argentine President Javier Milei has done "great on the macro economy," his "tunnel vision" leaves little room for crypto policy advancement. He also commented on Coinbase's recent pause of Argentine peso fiat rails, suggesting the high cost of localization, licensing, and compliance may have made it economically unviable.
With stablecoins reportedly processing about $33 trillion onchain in 2025
