In Brief:
- MercadoLibre plans to introduce crypto trading to its users in Brazil.
- The service will be available through MercadoPago, its digital payments app.
- The platform intends to debut the service in Brazil and later expand into other nations.
Latin American e-commerce platform Mercadolibre announced it will enable a service for buying, selling, and hodling cryptocurrencies available to its customers in Brazil through its payment app.
According to the Bloomberg report, the platform will introduce Bitcoin payments via its payment app, MercadoPago.
This feature was first made available to a small group of clients in November, and it will be made available to all customers in the coming weeks.
MercadoPago provides its users with credit lines, a free credit card, and a simple account that can be used to make and receive payments and will soon enable its customers to buy, hold, and sell bitcoin and other crypto tokens.
However, at first customers won’t be able to directly purchase goods on MercadoLibre through cryptocurrencies
Tulio Oliveira, MercadoPago vice president stated, “We took the time to study and learn before deciding to step into crypto. This has a transformational potential ahead and opens up a new avenue for us.”
Even though Mercadolibre was founded in Argentina, Brazil is the company’s primary market, with 11 million users.
Furthermore, Brazil has the region’s strongest economy and is a comparatively cryptocurrency-friendly nation so the platform’s decision to introduce the new feature in the country does make sense.
MercadoPago’s crypto wallet successfully completed its beta stage with no issues and will be ready for its debut soon.
It is uncertain whether users will be able to withdraw bitcoin into a self-custody wallet in which they hold the private keys.
MercadoLibre’s plan is to start with the Brazilian cryptocurrency scene and then expand to other nations.
A few days back French fintech firm Lydia partnered with Bitpanda to offer the same service as MercadoPago. The partnership offered Lydia’s 5.5M users stock and cryptocurrency trading options.
