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Coinbase Continues Brazil Expansion as It Integrates Country's Pix System

Tim Fries

Published: March 22, 2023 7:25 am

Last Updated: March 22, 2023 11:29 am

Coinbase, the largest publicly-traded cryptocurrency exchange, announced on Tuesday, March 21st, it has integrated the Pix payments ecosystem as a part of its continued expansion in Brazil. The company also announced a number of other improvements for users in the South American country including direct support for the real.

Coinbase Continues Expanding in Brazil, Integrates Pix Ecosystem

This Tuesday, Coinbase offered a number of updates for its users in Brazil at making the use of cryptocurrencies on the exchange easier for them. Perhaps the biggest of these is the fact that Coinbase integrated with Pix, a Brazil Central Bank-managed payments ecosystem. The development meant that users in the country will now be able to make deposits and withdrawals in the local currency—the real.

Coinbase also revealed it had partnered with a local payment gateway, Ebanx calling it a key example of the exchange’s “rich history of prioritizing safety and trust in the crypto space” and expressed their hopes the cooperation will lead to an expanded “access to the cryptoeconomy and web3”. Finally, the company stated that its app is now fully localized to Brazilian Portuguese and that live chat support is now available at all times.

The cryptocurrency exchange started operating in Brazil in late 2021 and considers the country to be a key part of its international expansion strategy. Coinbase is also reportedly currently working on a separate derivatives platform for international users, in large part due to regulatory uncertainty in the United States.

Brazil is Becoming a Major Digital Assets Hub

Recent months saw numerous developments with the potential to lead to more widespread crypto adoption emerging from Brazil. Companies as diverse as BInance and Berkshire Hathaway have been expanding their digital asset-related operations in the country, either directly, or through intermediaries. Furthermore, Brazil’s Central Bank joined nations like India in launching a CBDC pilot project already in September 2022.

That same month, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, announced the opening of two new offices in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and in January, it revealed that its prepaid card, released in partnership with Mastercard, is available in Brazil. Additionally, as of last October, the stablecoin USDT is available on 24,000 ATMs throughout the country.

While the United States is still waiting for the SEC to approve a single spot Bitcoin ETF, Galaxy unveiled its plans to launch such a product in Brazil already last November. Additionally, local companies offering exposure to cryptocurrencies are also finding success. The Warren Buffett-backed neobank Numbank revealed it had attracted nearly 2 million users to digital assets before launching the service in May 2022, and the beginning of September.

This article originally appeared on The Tokenist