Largest company in Latin America activates payment app for Bitcoin investments

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Brazilians will soon be able to buy, sell and hold bitcoin through MercadoPago, MercadoLibre’s digital payment app. MercadoLibre, known in Brazil as MercadoLivre, is the country’s largest e-commerce platform. It is not clear whether customers will be able to withdraw their bitcoin to a self-guard wallet.

MercadoPago, MercadoLibre’s digital payment app, will soon allow its Brazilian customers to buy, sell and hold bitcoin, Bloomberg reported. The largest company in Latin America by market capitalization rolled out this feature to a small group of customers in early November and will activate it more widely in the coming weeks.

“We took the time to study and learn before deciding to get into crypto,” said Tulio Oliveira, vice president of MercadoPago, according to the report. “This has the potential for transformation to come and opens up a new path for us. “

MercadoLibre, known in Brazil as MercadoLivre, is the country’s largest e-commerce site. MercadoPago gives its users access to lines of credit, a free credit card and a simple account that can be used to make and receive payments. The app, which is integrated with Brazil’s instant and free money transmission platform Pix, will soon allow its customers to buy, hold and sell bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

“The idea is to replicate the product in other Latin American markets in the future, according to Oliveira,” according to the report. “However, customers will initially not be able to use cryptocurrencies to directly pay for goods purchased on MercadoLibre,” he said.

It is not clear whether customers will be able to withdraw BTC to a self-guard wallet whose private keys they hold. If MercadoPago did not activate such a feature, customers would effectively purchase a bitcoin IOU, which while providing price exposure, alienates users from individual sovereignty and introduces an attack vector by relying on it. a third. One can only be sure of owning BTC once it is held by a wallet that they control.

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