The talks for the company's regulatory approval are reportedly reaching their end.
Mercado Bitcoin, a Brazilian-based cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2013, has recently revealed that it would be entering the Mexican market and starting operations in Q2 2022, right after receiving regulatory approval.
According to the official announcement issued on July 21st, the SoftBank-backed company, which didn’t reveal much information about the deal yet, is planning to arrive in Mexico by purchasing a crypto exchange or some other undisclosed company.
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Reinaldo Rabelo, CEO of Mercado Bitcoin, noted that Mercado Brazil parent 2TM Group, which currently has set up its headquarters in Brazil and Portugal through Bitrust, Blockchain Academy, Criptoloja, and Portal do Bitcoin, now views the Latin American market with caution amid the current crypto bear market.
Last year, 2TM managed to secure $200M in a funding round, while in June, it reduced its headcount by more than 80 employees due to “rising interest rates and inflation.”
Rabelo also shed some light on the harsh market conditions, noting that the cryptopocalypse will eventually come to an end, and players in the crypto world will be able to “experience other moments of excitement.”
Interestingly enough, if Mercado Bitcoin scores regulatory approval, it won’t be easy for the company to start its operations amid some competition. Last year, Bitso, a crypto exchange that has already processed around $1B in crypto settlements between the US and Mexico, set its foot in Brazil.
The Mexico-based platform also fired up its crypto services in Colombia earlier in July, marking Bitso as the first company to provide such services in the Colombian market. It also operates in El Salvador, Brazil, and Argentina.
In other news, back in May, Mercado Bitcoin joined forces with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) to build one of the nine projects selected for the LIFT Challenge Real Digital.
