The debut of bitcoin trading services in Mexico has been announced by Mercado Pago, the financial wallet branch of Mercado Libre, the Latam e-commerce behemoth. The business has already started offering this service to one million consumers in Brazil, enabling them to buy, sell, and store bitcoin and Ethereum and obtain Mercado Libre’s currency, mercadocoin.
Mercado Pago Debuts Crypto Purchases in Mexico
Mercado Pago hopes to expand its business in Mexico by offering cryptocurrency services. On September 27, the company—which operates as Mercado Libre’s wallet division—announced that it had enabled the option for consumers in Mexico to buy cryptocurrencies using local fiat money. Every consumer in Mexico can now buy bitcoin and ether using monies in Mercado Pago’s native wallet in this way.
The company seeks to provide more options to Mexican customers in bringing this product to Mexico. On this, Mercado Pago Mexico’s CEO Pedro Rivas stated:
Through this new service we seek to give millions of Mexicans access to the crypto world in an educational, safe and simple way, in order to generate greater technological inclusion.
Mercado Libre’s Latam Expansion
The business had already made hints about this action. On August 4, Mercado Pago’s CEO, Osvaldo Gimenez, proposed a potential expansion while highlighting the significance of cryptocurrencies as an alternative investment in Latam. Since November 2021, more than 1 million clients in Brazil have benefited from the company’s innovation in this service field.
Customers still cannot use cryptocurrency to buy items available in Mercado Libre through Mercado Pago. This is consistent with Marcos Galperin’s assessment of the utility of cryptocurrencies, which places greater emphasis on their role as a means of value storage than on possible payment options. Marcos Galperin is the co-founder and CEO of Mercado Libre. On August 20, the corporation also debuted mercadocoin, a proprietary token; however, it did not mention the introduction of this token in Mexico.
The popularity of cryptocurrencies has been slowly growing in Mexico, and other businesses have already incorporated them into their business models as payment. On April 13, the meal delivery service Rappi announced the start of a pilot program to accept cryptocurrency payments for its services.
In July, Indira Kempis, a Mexican senator, introduced a bill to declare bitcoin as a legal tender to improve the levels of financial inclusion and literacy of the citizens.
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