The company currently serves around 2.2 million traders in Brazil. The exchange trades about USD 2 million worth of Bitcoin daily.

In recent days, the Brazilian exchange Mercado Bitcoin announced that it plans to expand into the markets of Chile, Mexico, and Argentina. They could start operating in those countries this year after attracting investments of about USD 37 million.

The exchange noted that the regulatory culture in Brazil and these three other countries is practically the same. For that reason, they say that it is only a matter of time before they start their activities. They seek to develop a local ecosystem like that of the United States, according to Reinaldo Rabelo, the company’s CEO.

“To achieve this, we must be among the five largest digital exchanges in the world. Currently, we are the largest stock exchange in Latin America, but we operate almost exclusively in Brazil. From now on, we will take into account markets such as Chile, Mexico, and Argentina,” added Rabelo.

Plans of Expansion into Other Countries

Mercado Bitcoin included the project of internationalization in its work agenda a few years ago. They have always concentrated their operations mainly in the Brazilian market, but the new round of investments has increased their aspirations.

There are 2.2 million traders that receive support from this Brazilian exchange. After the expansion, the company estimates that it will be able to serve around 3 million traders. In 2020, they reached a total trading volume of BRL 6,400 million (equivalent to around USD 1,170 million).

According to figures from CoinMarketCap, they mainly trade two pairs. The ETH/BRL pair represents a daily trading volume of USD 2.5 million. The BTC/BRL one represents another USD 2 million every 24 hours.

Growth and New Bitcoin-Related Products

The rise of Bitcoin worldwide has boosted the trading on the exchange during January. The company said that it reached more than 50% of the total trading volume of last year.

The companies and funds that participated in the investment round mainly include the following: GP Investimentos, Parallax Ventures, Évora Fund (Zé Bonchristiano), HS Investimentos Private Investment Fund (FIP), Banco Plural, and Gear Ventures.

The company has faced difficulties as some banks have closed their accounts, which they consider anti-competitive conduct. This situation has affected the exchange due to the restriction of their operations. Some cryptocurrencies that people can trade on their platform include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, Chainlink, Litecoin, XRP, and USD Coin.

Other Exchanges Have Expanded into Latin America

In 2021, San Francisco-based platform Coinbase announced the expansion of its service into 11 other countries. The firm indicated that users in countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and Chile could access their cryptocurrency exchange services.

The previous year, P2P platform Binance expanded its cryptocurrency trading market into Latin America. Users in Latin America could directly buy and sell BTC, ETH, USDT, BNB, and BUSD with Latin American fiat currencies.

Mexican exchange Bitso recently announced that it will also expand into the region. The company raised USD 62 million for new operations, but they did not provide details on the markets that they are evaluating.

By Alexander Salazar

The Law on Transactions with Digital Assets has no date for discussion. Nebraska Is seeking to follow in Wyoming’s footsteps in passing a crypto act.

Republican Senator from Nebraska, Mike Flood, introduced two projects that would permit state banks to offer custody services for digital assets. The laws would provide a regulatory framework for new technology companies interested in investing in said entity.

Flood presented the Law on Transactions with Digital Assets. He proposes the steps that each state bank has to follow to create a favorable environment to offer custody services regarding bitcoin and other digital assets.

The bill also considers creating institutions that will work exclusively with cryptocurrencies and receive back-up by the state through regulations, supervision, statutes, and operatives.

The text highlights the crescent interest of banks in being providers of custody services. If the law receives approval, such organisms must notify their interest in adopting digital assets to the Nebraska Director of Banking and Finance within 60 days in advance. Nebraska will turn into a source for digital currency operations if both projects receive a green light from the government.

“Being at the forefront of this, I think, is good for us. We need to be fintech leaders. We have as much right to this new market as any other place in the United States, “Flood told a local media last week.

The second project called the Nebraska Financial Innovation Act, pursuits to achieve that banks willing to accept cryptocurrencies do not become “victims of discriminatory practices,” as has happened with other banks in that country.

According to the text, “the rapid innovation of blockchain and the increasing use of virtual currencies and other digital assets are becoming an obstacle for many innovators to access secure and reliable banking services, which obstructs the development of services and blockchain in the market.”

Both laws’ date for a discussion is still unclear. Republican lawmakers, a party to which Flood belongs, are a majority in the legislative chamber, raising the odds of passage of the proposed rule.

Wyoming Inspired Flood’s Interests in the Crypto-World

Senator Flood said that the start of operations of the Kraken exchange in the area of ​​traditional regulated financial services in Wyoming inspired him enough to present the bills for the custody of crypto assets to put Nebraska on a parallel status.

Wyoming approved a law in 2018 to absolve service tokens that meet specific stipulations from taxes. The legalization of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies also followed in 2019.

Kraken was joined last year by the financial group Avanti, becoming the second cryptocurrency company to obtain an official banking license to operate in Wyoming.

It is essential to consider that Nebraska allows the receiving of payments, custodians, and other trusts in bitcoin to every active lawyer in the state. This practice does not transgress any ethical code nor goes in contrary to other laws.

By: Jenson Nuñez

The market panicked due to a rumor, but then everything cleared up, and Bitcoin is now recovering.

A drastic drop in the bitcoin price due to rumors, misinformation, and confusion created a state of panic and uncertainty in the crypto-world. The cryptocurrency cost crushed the ground with a figure below the—$ 30,000 for the first time in a month.

Although Bitcoin has already managed to cross that line and its price begins to recover (at this time, it is trading over USD 31,680), it is essential to know what happened, what caused the stampede.

Different media attributed the sudden drop in price to rumors of a “double-spend,” which is a term to describe the phenomenon of a coin being spent twice in the Bitcoin protocol.

Andreas Antonopoulos claimed on Twitter: “There were headlines about a ‘double spend’ on #Bitcoin! Many understood that it means that Bitcoin has a catastrophic failure (it does not have it) or that the network is not secure (it is) or that Bitcoin broke down in some way (it is not).”

When block 666833 appeared posted, two conflicting transactions happened (which seemed to be a double-spend attempt). It is usual in a blockchain to discard the ‘bad’ block and spread the excellent block through the network. Bitcoin worked the way it needed to work, and the network proved its credibility. The bad block was left alone with a commit, while the excellent block gained more than 100 commits.

But several media said that there had been “double spending” due to a misinterpretation of the facts, a statement that produced the so-called a FUD (an expression in the crypto-world to qualify a commercial or political strategy, which works through the dissemination of negative, confusing or biased information).

It is an atypical event, but it ends up being usual. How things went out of control shows that the media coverage needs to reinforce the facts instead of circling bland theories that could lead to harm in the crypto-environment.

Antonopoulos’s Twitter Thread and Some of his Tweets about the Topic

In a thread of 24 tweets, Antonopoulos denies all the rumors and explains what happened. He explains in the line the difference between malicious double-spending and a natural reorganization of the blockchain.

The expert highlighted that one-block reorganization happens naturally on average once every two weeks. Two-block reorganization occurs once a year or so, and three-block reorganization has never happened to date. That is why the “3 confirmations rule “gained strength in the community as a legitimate proof of a BTC transaction’s immutability.

A chain reorganization on the Bitcoin blockchain occurred, which is a joint event that plays a role in the regular operation of Bitcoin. It is the result of a decentralized consensus under Proof of Work.

Two blocks quarried almost simultaneously, and both were competing for the same height, meaning they had the same parent block and were trying to expand the chain from the same block. Only one can be successful in the long run.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Decentraland grows more than 60% due to its possible entry into Grayscale funds. Chainlink is also on the trust list of Grayscale and growing more than 13%.

The week of January 18 to 23, 2021, brought many surprises. The market has continuously shown ups and downs. According to Live Coin Watch statistics, altcoins have shown a downward trend, while a few experienced a growth that surpassed 65%.

Decentraland is leading (MANA), which is also in the list of cryptocurrencies of the trust applications of Grayscale as well as Chainlink (LINK), which follows at the top. The same happened with Tezos (XTZ), which ranked third.

The list of crypto assets is now complete with Polkadot (DOT), with an alliance to intensify its staking system, and Avalanche (AVAX), which implements a new application for DeFi.

A Critical Drop challenged Bitcoin’s Price

In these seven days, the price of Bitcoin suffered a relevant drop, after recovering the previous week (when it was approaching $ 40,000 again). However, on January 21, BTC’s value falls back to USD 31,200, reaching a low of USD 28,900 the next day. On average, BTC suffered an average weekly drop of 14.5%.

Among the reasons that would be pushing the price down are the institutional investors. There are doubtful traders regarding the cost of BTC, which will surpass $ 40,000 again and create an over-demand in the market thanks to bitcoin derivatives. There is also an influence of the political transition in the presidency of the United States.

Ether (ETH) also registers a slight drop in value, which is possibly driven by Bitcoin. Its average decline was 0.9% last week, with a price ranging between $ 1,047 and $ 1,426. This past week the cryptocurrency broke its all-time high of 2017 and exceeded its ATH, dated from January 2018.

The breakout shook users mainly because many saw in this event an approach of the altcoin season or dominance of the market by more reasonable alternatives. Bitcoin seems to keep its consistency, but it also might fall again.

Decentraland Enters Grayscale New Registered Funds List

This week, MANA, the cryptocurrency of virtual reality game Decentraland, created headlines thanks to its inclusion into the group of six trustable currencies of Grayscale.

On January 22, valuable information about the Registration to create a Grayscale Descentraland Trust appeared in many media outlets, which came in parallel with the high peak that the token had shown during that time.

Although the firm did not clarify enough points about this launch of the fund, its Registration seems to be a very probable event in the future.

On January 20, the release of version 2.0 of the Decentraland LAND API saw the light of day as an announcement meant on Twitter. This update aims at improving secure access to market metadata, facilitating the use of construction tools with required data on the land.

By: Jenson Nuñez