Mercado Pago, the digital banking arm of Latin America’s largest e-commerce company Mercado Libre (MELI), said on Wednesday that it is introducing a US dollar-pegged stablecoin in Brazil. The company said that Mercado Pago users in Brazil will be able to buy and sell the Meli Dollar stablecoin using their Brazilian real account balances, without paying any fees. The product, the firm said, aims to provide a practical and stable option for managing finances.
In August 2022, Mercado Libre launched its Mercado Coin cryptocurrency to allow users to make purchases on the marketplace and earn cash back. Prior to that, Mercado Libre integrated the Paxos blockchain infrastructure with Mercado Pago to allow users in Brazil to buy, sell, and store Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Paxos’ Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoin.
Ripio, a Latin American crypto company, will act as a market maker for transactions made on Mercado Pago, the company said. Ripio, which operates a trading platform and wallet in the region, among other services, partnered with Mercado Pago to develop Mercado Coin. Mercado Libre’s move comes about a year after U.S.-based PayPal (PYPL) brought its dollar-based stablecoin PYUSD to market, which has approached a $1 billion market cap in recent days.
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