Report contents
LATAM · Emerging
Peru
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 46 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +3 |
| Inflation 3.3% · unbanked 41% · remittances 1.7% GDP · capital controls 0 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.108 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.663 |
| Livability score | 0.363 |
Raw 46/84 = 0.548 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.11, from five components: inflation 3.3% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 41% of adults, remittances 1.7% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.00 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.66. Livability score 0.363, rank #56 of 79.
Three findings
An effective 5% crypto tax, one of the lightest in the region
Peru's tax authority treats individual crypto gains as second-category capital income: a 6.25% statutory rate cut by an automatic 20% deduction leaves an effective 5% on gains, comfortably inside the favourable band and scoring 3. The retail baseline holds even though habitual professional trading can be reclassified as business income at up to 29.5%.
Strong appetite, thin rails
Crypto app downloads grew 50% in 2025 to 2.9 million, and Peru was Latin America's fastest-growing market by active crypto users, yet the spending stack is shallow: a single anchor merchant cluster, the "MoliCoin" program of about ten restaurants in Lima's La Molina district; no operating local crypto card at the cutoff after Lulubit and the discontinued Binance Card were found not to serve Peru; and 0/6 on utility bills, since the Bybit Pay integration with the Yape and Plin wallets launched 14 January 2026, after the cutoff.
Six crypto ATMs for the 12 million people of its three largest cities
ATM density scores 1, at 0.49 machines per 1 million urban residents across Lima, Arequipa and Trujillo. Combined with a small remittance corridor, $4.9 billion inbound at a 1 to 3% crypto share, Peru's capability sits well below its regional peers, leaving it at #56 of 79.
In one line
"Peru has the demand: crypto app downloads jumped by half in a single year. What it lacks is the plumbing, the local cards and bill-pay rails that would turn that curiosity into a place you can actually spend."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 2/4, stable. The Framework Law for the Commercialisation of Cryptoassets, Bill 1042-2021-CR, has been debated in Congress through 2025 without passing. The financial regulator issued detailed anti-money-laundering rules for virtual-asset providers in May 2024, and Resolution 132-2024 inserted a Travel Rule (a rule requiring identity data to accompany transfers) whose enforcement is set for August 2026, the next concrete trigger. Post-cutoff: the Bybit Pay launch with Yape and Plin on 14 January 2026 is the first credible domestic crypto-to-merchant rail.