Japan’s SoftBank leads $200 million investment in Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin

Japan’s SoftBank recently has invested $200 million into the Mercado Bitcoin crypto exchange in Brazil.

Roberto Dagnoni, the CEO and executive chairman of 2TM Group, the parent company of Mercado Bitcoin, revealed that the cryptocurrency exchange plans to utilize the funds to ramp up its business activities, improve its crypto offerings, and make an investment in infrastructure, so that meet the increasing demand for cryptocurrency services in Brazil.

The investment is considered the largest raised through a Series B funding round in Latin America’s history and SoftBank’s largest investment in a crypto firm in Latin America. The 2TM group stated that its valuation hit $2.1 billion as a result of that investment.

Softbank’s investment comes when investors’ interest in crypto assets has increased amid crackdowns imposed by regulators in Japan, Britain, and China. Such crackdowns have resulted in outflows of cryptocurrency investment funds and products in the previous few weeks.

However, Dagnoni was unmoved by the recent crackdown on crypto assets.

In a phone interview with Reuters, Dagnoni stated: "We are strong believers in the fundamentals of crypto."

Dagnoni further stated: "The platform is quite integrated. So, custody is very important in releasing the power of the institutional market. We're also looking at regional expansions in Latam and expansions via M&A (mergers and acquisitions) as well."

Mercado Bitcoin is the largest crypto exchange in Brazil. It established its crypto business operation in 2013. Since then, the firm has experienced significant growth, with customers hitting 2.8 million this year, more than 70% of the entire number of investors in Brazil’s stock exchange.

An estimated 700,000 new clients created accounts to utilize Mercado Bitcoin’s cryptocurrency services between January and May this year. The trade volume at Mercado Bitcoin has risen to $5 billion during the first five months of this year, thus surpassing the entire volume of its first seven years in business operations.

Raining Crypto Funding Rounds

While crypto tokens significantly influence traditional financial and banking systems, such as rising investments in recent months. The entire market value of crypto assets is rising to hit $2 trillion, which could be larger than the market cap of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

Despite the recent plunge in Bitcoin prices, big names such as PayPal, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and others have seriously involved themselves and made investments in crypto exchanges. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs became the first leading banks in the US to provide wealthy customers with direct access to Bitcoin services. 

Meanwhile, blockchain technology’s popularity has dramatically grown and attracted more cryptocurrency investors and venture funds into the crypto market. Due to the popularity of crypto coins, blockchain technology is seen moving out of the crypto market and being embraced by other industries. Thus, institutions and venture companies are rushing to try their luck in crypto funding. Such funding assists crypto firms in expanding their operations and gives them the edge to try out executing new activities.