Huobi revealed the acquisition of Bitex, which has a network headquartered in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
The digital market continues falling into a void due to various political-economic factors that managed to crush the financial world in general and the internal crisis that got empowered after the collapse of the Terra space. However, this situation has not prevented investments from happening, as many are betting on a promising future for crypto assets.
Huobi Global, the world’s third-largest digital assets exchange when it comes to trading volume, announced that it purchased the Bitex exchange, one of the first regional crypto exchanges based in Latin America. According to the EFE agency, the terms of the agreement remain unrevealed and got not disclosed.
Bitex counts on platforms in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Huobi Global plans to integrate the operations of the Bitex exchange with the Huobi Global platform, which will allow users in Latin America to trade all digital assets available on Huobi Global.
However, Bitex will not vanish after the integration but will retain its brand and keep working independently.
Adoption in Latin America
With almost 665 million people, Latin America ranks fifth worldwide in digital asset acceptance and captures between 8% and 10% of global digital asset activity, reports EFE. The region saw crypto usage growth by 1,370% from 2019 to 2021, with Venezuela and Argentina reaching the 7th and 10th in the 2021 Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index.
Since Huobi Group made its first steps in the Latin American market in 2019, remarkable growth got experienced, and the entity showed optimism about prospects for the Latin American region.
Caleb Lim, the current senior investment manager at Huobi Group, said that only about half of the population in Latin America has bank accounts. Through this purchase, Huobi Global hopes to satisfy this needing for alternative financial features through blockchain technology.
On the other hand, the CEO of Bitex, Francisco Buero, said Bitex got created to shelter the value of users’ money following the major financial crises in Latin America. He expressed that having grown that way after eight subsequent years of successful activities, Bitex’s partnership with Huobi Global will support their expansion and improve the service aimed at clients.
Bitex will encourage this expansion by allowing users to access a more extensive range of digital assets on the trading network.
Huobi in Latin America
Huobi Group consolidated its first incursion into Latin America with the release of Huobi Argentina in 2019, attracted by the increasing demand for products linked to crypto and other services in the market. In 2020, Huobi Argentina implemented fiat-crypto pairing between the Argentine peso and Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT). Last year, it also added five payment methods to improve the trading experience for users and make the liquidity of its market growth.
By: Jenson Nuñez
