Brazilians bought a whopping $496 million worth of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) in August. Over all of 2021, Brazilians have even spent $4.27 billion on crypto. The Brazilian central bank revealed this last weekend, reports Reuters on October 18.
Brazilians spent the most on crypto in May this year, at $756 million. That should come as no surprise as a number of major cryptos were still breaking records at the time and new ones all time high (ATHs) including ether.
Then that amount decreased slightly to $695 million in June, $583 million in July and $496 million in August. Nevertheless, these three months were still higher than February and March. In February, $386 million and in March $457 million were spent by Brazilians on crypto.
It is an increase of almost 150% from the same period in 2020 and 2019 when less than $1.7 billion was still spent on crypto in Brazil.
According to Bruno Serra, director of monetary policy at Brazil’s central bank, Brazilians are now estimated to own nearly $50 billion in total crypto. He adds that this is three times more than what Brazilian investors own in US equities, which amounts to about $16 billion.
According to Serra, investing in crypto is a quest for wealth diversification by investors and he expects this development to be here to stay:
“I think this dynamic of offshore diversification is one that might stay here. Many diversification channels have been opened. Foreign exchange regulations are being relaxed in this regard; it’s something we need to address. It’s a one-way street. Due to energy costs, Brazil does not produce crypto assets. It is just an importer.”