Latin America’s Biggest Investment Bank Just Launched a Stablecoin on Polygon

Latin America’s biggest investment bank, Brazil-based BTG Pactual, today announced the launch of its own stablecoin. 

Rio de Janeiro-based BTG Pactual said in a Tuesday statement that its BTG Dol token, available for clients now, is priced in U.S. dollars. 

BTG Pactual confirmed to Decrypt that the asset will run on the Polygon—the blockchain behind the 10th largest cryptocurrency by market cap MATIC. Polygon is a sidechain network that is compatible with Ethereum and is popular among big brands, such as Starbucks and Disney.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged to a stable asset, in this case the U.S. dollar. They are an important part of the crypto ecosystem and two major stablecoins, Tether and Circle’s USDC, sit among the top 10 biggest digital assets by market cap. 

They’re useful for crypto traders who want to quickly enter and exit trades without using a traditional bank or fiat currency. Stablecoins can simply sit in their crypto wallets and traders can then cash them out later. They are particularly important in markets where dollars are restricted or inaccessible, and are integral to non-custodial lending and trading products in the DeFi space.

Regulators around the world, however, are keeping a close eye on stablecoins. This is because some regulators see them as a threat to the current financial system: stablecoins in the past have collapsed, wreaking havoc in the digital asset market. Regulators are worried that future failures could affect the stability of the traditional markets and U.S. lawmakers have called for stablecoin issuers to be regulated just like banks.

BTG Pactual said in their statement that this stablecoin would allow investors a “simple, efficient, and secure” way to put their equity into dollars. 

“When buying BTG Dol, investors have access to an easier, safer and smarter way to invest in dollars,” BTG Pactual’s Head of Digital Assets André Portilho said. 

Brazil is Latin America’s largest economy and the third largest in the Americas after the U.S. and Canada. 

It also has Latin America’s buzziest crypto market: many of Brazil’s major banks already offer investors digital asset exposure and the country has more Bitcoin ETFs than any other nation in the region. 

BTG Dol is available on Mynt, the bank’s crypto-asset platform, and through BTG Pactual’s own investment system, according to Tuesday’s announcement. 

Tuesday’s announcement added that clients will be able to invest as little as 100 reais ($20).