While Brazilian cryptocurrency exchanges struggled with foreign platforms operating in the country, they may not have realized that some of their biggest competitors were already in the country, such as Nubank Y Payment Market. In February 2022, Mercado Pago, a Mercado Libre company, reached the 1 million crypto customer mark. A pioneer among major fintechs, the company launched Bitcoin trading in partnership with Paxos and quickly brought its base into the industry. In the last days, Nubank stated that in just three weeks after launching cryptocurrencies, 1 million customers were reached. The cases show that the rapid arrival of digital banks in the sector may draw the attention of Brazilian cryptocurrency exchanges.
Nubank has already become one of the largest Bitcoin brokers in Brazil
A recent study published by snaq, a platform that creates content about the startup ecosystem in Brazil, sought to understand the size of cryptocurrency operations operating in the country. Thus, seeking to read articles on the subject, press releases published by the companies themselves, as well as information on their website, a kind of ranking was drawn up on the sector. According to the survey, it became clear that the largest exchange in Brazil in terms of number of clients is Mercado Bitcoin, with 3.8 million registered users. Then draw attention to what appears Nubank Crypto with 1 million customers. Exchanges like foxbit have also reached this mark and appear among the largest platforms to allow cryptocurrency trading. Other companies remembered were NovaDAX (850 thousand), BitcoinTrade (650 thousand), Bitcointoyou (400 thousand) and Coinext (300 thousand).
Study reveals that Nubank is one of the largest Bitcoin brokers in Brazil. Image: snaq/Instagram. It should be remembered that the study did not mention the presence of Mercado Pago, or exchanges such as BitPreço, which is one of the largest volume exchanges. The main difference between digital banks operating in the sector and brokers remains the issue of cryptocurrency withdrawals and deposits, since neither Nubank nor Mercado Pago have released these options to customers so far, even with many users. Currently, there are at least 22 exchanges operating in Brazil, despite the fact that Binance owns more than 70% of the volume in the last 24 hoursfor instance.
International exchanges with an eye on the Brazilian market
The largest exchanges in the world are already looking for their space in Latin America, a place that has attracted attention since 2021, when El Salvador named Bitcoin legal tender for the first time. As Brazil is the largest country in the region and has the highest Bitcoin trading volume, the local market attracts even more interest from large platforms, such as Binance Y FTX, for instance. Coinbase is another that has plans to have a local team dedicated to cryptocurrency trading. Bitfinex, a company that is part of the ecosystem that issues the Tether currency, is another platform that wants to fight for positions in the country. In this way, the national market should see more platform arrivals soon and everything indicates that the regulation will not be an impediment to landings.
