In December 2021, users of Mercado Pago, Mercado Libre’s digital wallet, were allowed to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoin Pax dollar (USDP) in Brazil after an integration with Paxos blockchain infrastructure.
The company will be expanding the possibility to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies in users’ accounts in the region. The company’s crypto-trading feature in Brazil hit 1 million users two months after its launch.
Mercado Libre is an owner of Bitcoin, having disclosed a USD 7.8 million purchase in May 2021. In January 2022, the company announced an investment in 2TM – the holding company for Brazil's crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin – and blockchain infrastructure company Paxos.
In June Mercado Libre announced a partnership with Mastercard to strengthen the security and transparency of its crypto ecosystem in Brazil. Mastercard's CipherTrace technology allows Mercado Libre to monitor, identify, and understand risks, and help the retailer manage its regulatory and compliance obligations.
At the beginning of 2022 Mercado Libre announced it will be focusing more of its forces on the Mexican market. According to the company, the operation in Mexico had the highest revenue in Q4 2021, up by 33% in sales volume. The capital infusion is used to innovate technology, boost logistic operations, as well as develop other categories in the online market, including supermarkets and apparel.
Recently, Spain-based international bank Santander has also announced plans to offer crypto trading to its clients in Brazil in the latter half of 2022. Santander has previously made inroads with crypto in Latin America in 2021. In March, it launched loans in Argentina for farmers collateralized with tokenized commodities in partnership with Agrotoken, an Argentina-based agricultural commodities tokenization platform.
Argentina is the target for Binance and Mastercard, as the two companies have recently launched a new prepaid rewards card in Argentina that supports both Bitcoin and BNB. For now, the card is still in its beta phase, and Argentina is the first country in Latin America to have the product. Issued by Credencial Payments, the Binance Card will allow new and existing users in Argentina with a valid national ID to make daily purchases and perform financial operations such as bill payments using cryptocurrencies.
Mastercard’s main competitor, Visa, has also launched crypto cards in LATAM. The company announced collaborations with various fintech companies and IT startups in Brazil and Argentina that will let users make transactions with Visa cards and receive crypto cashbacks every time they spend. The move includes cryptocurrency card programs and partnerships with fintech providers crypto exchange startups in the region.
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