Brazil’s leading brokerage firm reveals the launch date of its crypto platform

XP Inc. – one of Brazil’s largest brokerages – expects to release its cryptocurrency platform by mid-August 2022. Initially, the entity will allow trading in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH), while it may add more digital assets later in the year .

Crypto’s decline is not a concern for XP

In May of this year, Brazilian investment management company – XP Inc. – partnered with Nasdaq to create a digital asset exchange called XTAGE. The platform was to be fully integrated into the firm’s ecosystem and go live by the end of June.

But in a recent interview with Reuters, Lucas Rabechini – director of financial products at XP – said the launch of the platform will be delayed until mid-August. As originally planned, the trading platform will support the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization – bitcoin and ether, while in the following months ten more assets should follow.

Regarding the ongoing market crash, Rabechini argued that crypto prices are not the only important feature of the industry:

“You can say ‘volume has been weak, there will be few orders’, but we see this market systematically growing over time, and our long-term view is not only focused on price, but also technology.”

Rabechini then assured that XP’s crypto services will comply with national legislation to provide maximum protection for the firm’s 3.6 million customers.

Brazil’s financial giants are rushing to offer crypto services

Last September, one of the largest Brazilian banks – BTG Pactual – allowed its customers to trade cryptocurrencies directly through a new platform called Mynt. Like XP, the financial institution only included bitcoin and ether in its offering.

In May 2022, Latin America’s largest digital bank – Nubank – teamed up with Paxos to offer a simple and seamless cryptocurrency experience for its users. Specifically, customers were enabled to buy, sell and hold BTC and ETH via the banking app, with crypto purchases starting at $0.20 (1 BRL).

Two weeks ago, Brazilian digital payments startup PicPay launched a cryptocurrency exchange. Apart from bitcoin and ether, the platform will also support Paxos USDP stablecoin, which is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. By the end of 2022, the trading platform intends to support up to 100 coins.