Brazil’s Largest Digital Bank Set To Start Bitcoin And Ethereum Trading Services ⋆ ZyCrypto

The wave of crypto adoption in Latin America shows no signs of slowing down. On Wednesday, Paxos confirmed that Brazil’s most valuable digital bank, Nubank, would be offering crypto trading services to its clients.

Nubank Launches Crypto Trading Services With The Help Of Paxos

Nubank, as confirmed by a press release from Paxos on Wednesday, is set to start offering crypto trading services to its customers. The renowned digital bank has also allotted 1% of its resources to purchasing Bitcoin to show its belief in the staying power of the digital asset.

Nubank is Brazil’s most prominent digital bank, with over 50 million customers in Latin America. Nu Holdings, NuBank’s parent company, is currently valued at around $17.4 billion, with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway owning about $1 billion in shares.

Notably, the latest move is not entirely the bank’s first venture into the crypto space, as it previously gave customers crypto exposure through ETFs on its investment platform NuInvest. According to the press release from Paxos, customers will be able to access the new feature within the Nubank app, and at launch, will only offer trading and custody services for Bitcoin and Ethereum, with plans in place to expand the offering in the future. Paxos expects to roll out the feature to all customers by the end of July.

As per the report, Blockchain infrastructure company Paxos will be offering the custody and brokerage service for the feature. It is not the first time Paxos has engaged in such partnerships in the region, last December, Paxos had also worked with Mercado Libre, Latin America’s most prominent e-commerce firm, to make crypto trading services available to customers on its digital wallet platform Mercado Pago. 

David Vélez, CEO and founder at Nubank, in a statement, noted that while the adoption of crypto is on the rise in the region, the nascent market still comes across as complex to many people, and this is a gap Nubank intends to close with its latest offering. Vélez said, “At Nubank, we aim to empower our customers by putting them in control of their money. Therefore, we built an experience that was simple and intuitive enough to broaden access to new segments while being robust and powerful for the more crypto-savvy.”

Latin American Crypto Adoption Moving Forward

Latin America is now the leader in terms of Bitcoin adoption globally, according to Chainalysis, in part due to the work of lawmakers who are churning out crypto-friendly regulations. Brazil, the largest country in the region, now accounts for over $125 billion in the region’s $500 billion crypto industry.

As previously reported by ZyCrypto, the country is on track to sign its crypto bill into law by the end of the year. The bill, if passed, would see the Latin American country become a haven for green Bitcoin miners. Speaking on the impact of Nubank’s new crypto trading services on crypto adoption in the region, Charles Cascarilla, Co-Founder & CEO of Paxos, said:

“The Company’s reach and impact across the country’s different segments ensures that even more people will be able to dive into crypto than ever before. Nubank’s move to enter the crypto trading space represents a strategic move not only for the company, but for an acceleration of the cryptocurrency adoption in the region.”