As Latin America continues to emerge as a strategic growth market for digital assets, Nexo is doubling down on the region through targeted investments, local partnerships, and a strong focus on consumer trust. The company’s recent partnership with the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and its acquisition of Buenbit underscore its ambitions to strengthen its foothold in Argentina while building momentum across the broader LATAM market.
In this exclusive interview with SportsMint Media, Federico Ogue, CEO of Nexo Argentina, discusses how the AFA partnership aligns with Nexo’s regional growth strategy, the key investor trends shaping its expansion plans, the role of sports and athlete partnerships in fostering trust, and why Latin America is poised to become one of the company’s most important markets in the years ahead.
1. How does this partnership with the Argentine Football Association align with Nexo’s broader strategy of establishing Buenos Aires as a regional hub for Latin America?
Football in Argentina is not just a sport – it is a cultural institution, and the AFA partnership reflects that understanding. At its core, this collaboration is an expression of Nexo’s values: the same commitment to foresight, long-term thinking, and excellence that defines our platform also defines the clubs, players, and fans that make Argentine football what it is. Establishing genuine presence in a market means aligning with what that market cares about most. That shared sense of purpose is what makes this the right partnership for this market.
2. What key consumer or market insights from Argentina are shaping your expansion strategy across LATAM?
The Nexo Digital Wealth Survey found that 74.3% of affluent Argentine investors hold digital assets – the highest rate across the three markets we studied – but the more strategically relevant finding is the behavioral profile underneath that number.1 Roughly one in five Argentine crypto holders falls into what we classify as Conviction or Structurally Integrated segments: investors who treat digital assets as a core portfolio component. That is the product-market fit for credit, yield, and structured products, and it is the segment we are actively mapping across LATAM.
Two behavioral patterns are particularly instructive. Argentine crypto investors rank generating income outside their primary employment as their top financial priority – ahead of retirement saving. At the same time, roughly half allocate to crypto only when surplus income allows. Together, those findings describe an investor who manages liquidity carefully and looks for capital efficiency rather than speculation. We expect related patterns in markets that share Argentina’s macro history – high inflation, periodic currency restrictions, limited access to dollar-denominated savings – but the specific weightings will differ, and we are building for that.
The third insight is timing. As the cepo cambiario lifts and Argentina’s regulatory framework matures, investors are visibly moving from preservation to wealth building. That transition is precisely when credit, yield, and portfolio infrastructure become relevant. We are watching for the same inflection point in other LATAM markets exiting periods of restriction.
1Nexo Digital Wealth Survey 2026 (n=300, affluent investors with $40,000+ in liquid assets)
3. What KPIs will define success for this partnership–user growth, transaction volumes, or brand trust, and how do you plan to measure ROI?
We track success across two complementary layers. The first is brand: branded search uplift, share of voice within the digital assets category, earned media volume and sentiment, social impressions, and broadcast exposure. These signals tell us how the Nexo name – and more importantly, our values and mission – travel beyond the partnership itself.
The second layer is commercial: web traffic, new registrations, and client activity. Nexo’s Argentine user base has grown 34% in the four months since we acquired Buenbit. Those metrics connect brand visibility and business outcomes and allow us to assess whether the partnership is reaching and converting the right audiences. Taken together, these indicators give us a complete picture of ROI – one that captures both the long-term brand-building value of the association and its more immediate commercial impact.
4. To what extent does the global appeal of Lionel Messi help bridge the trust gap for first-time crypto users in markets like Argentina? Do you see athlete-led partnerships becoming a core pillar of your marketing strategy going forward?
Sport has proven to be a powerful connector between Nexo and the audiences we want to reach. The trust and credibility that elite athletes carry can open conversations with a wide array of audiences we are eager to reach. We have seen this dynamic play out in our own partnerships: our collaboration with rising tennis star Rodrigo Pacheco Mendez at the Mifel Tennis Open showed us how the right athlete association can bring Nexo’s values – growth, excellence, long-term thinking – to life in a way that resonates authentically with local audiences.
Whether that approach evolves and in what form is something we continue to evaluate as we deepen our presence across LATAM, but the direction of travel is clear: partnerships that combine genuine regional relevance with world-class talent create the kind of trust that takes years to build any other way.
5. In a competitive digital assets landscape, how do sports partnerships help Nexo differentiate beyond its product offerings?
Being a Nexo client means access to more than a platform – it means access to a world. Through our sports partnerships, we curate experiences that sit well outside the ordinary: private tennis clinics, exclusive hospitality lounges at Grand Slam tournaments, behind-the-scenes access at elite events. These are not marketing activations – they are part of what it means to be part of Nexo. In a space where many platforms offer comparable products, the depth of the client relationship is where the real differentiation lives, and sport gives us one of the most compelling ways to build it.
6. Do you see LATAM evolving into one of Nexo’s primary revenue drivers over the next three to five years?
The goal is definitely to make LATAM one of our primary revenue drivers, right up alongside Europe and the U.S. – our two main regional markets. Whether it would be primary remains to be seen.
The Buenbit acquisition gave us an operational base and an existing user relationship in Argentina, the region’s most advanced digital asset market. That is not a starting point we take lightly. Building genuine trust in LATAM requires local presence, local product configuration, and partnerships that signal long-term commitment. Our work with the Argentine Football Association ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup is an example of exactly that approach.
The structural conditions across the region are increasingly favorable. Regulatory clarity is progressing in several key markets, and the behavioral profile we have documented in Argentina – investors seeking capital efficiency, income generation, and dollar-denominated financial infrastructure – is not unique to Argentina. It reflects a macro reality shared across much of LATAM.
