SoftBank is investing $ 200 million in the Mercado Bitcoin exchange, the return of an empire

Mercado Bitcoin, the largest Bitcoin exchange in Brazil, raised $ 200 million in a Series B round from Latin America’s SoftBank fund.

Roberto Dagnoni, president and CEO of 2TM Group, the parent company of Mercado Bitcoin, said the investment represents the largest Series B funding round in Latin American history and is a massive investment by SoftBank in a crypto company in the region.

É official: o Mercado Bitcoin é o maior unicórnio cripto da América Latina! ????

Recebemos for a $ 200 million location for SoftBank for global expansion via the Nossa Exchange and Apostas em Melhorias for products for Nossos customers.# 2The moon pic.twitter.com/DbTt1I7Tnf

– Mercado Bitcoin (@MercadoBitcoin) July 1, 2021

This round of investments helped 2TM Group increase its valuation to $ 2.1 billion. The 2TM Group is the second crypto unicorn in Latin America after Bitso. The gap between the two rivals isn’t too great after Bitso announced $ 250 million in Series C financing at a market value of $ 2.2 billion in May.

According to a recent announcement from the company, it gained around 700,000 new users between January and May 2021 and now has a total customer base of 2.8 million. Mercado Bitcoin’s trading volume also rose to $ 5 billion, surpassing the total for the first seven years.

Mercado Bitcoin plans to expand its team to 700 employees by the end of the year and to introduce a cryptocurrency wallet, MeuBank, and a custody service called Bitrust. Both projects are currently awaiting regulatory approval from the Brazilian authorities.

The highlight of this event, however, is the name Softbank, which is run by a billionaire CEO Masayoshi Son. The person once said that after investing in Bitcoin, he had to spend time monitoring Bitcoin price movements every day and this “causing him to lose focus on his business“Mine.

Because of this, Son decided to sell all of its Bitcoin holdings in 2018 despite a loss of $ 50 million. However, according to another source, he lost nearly $ 130 million selling Bitcoin that year.

I feel a lot better now. I still don’t really understand Bitcoin.

Now that things are different, Softbank and Masayoshi Son decided to “come back” with Bitcoin. This can be seen as a positive signal for the entire cryptocurrency market. With their status as a financial empire, this will seldom be the case at Softbank. “bathe twice in the same river shark“.

Synthetic

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