The saga between Latin American soccer and crypto is heating up this year as some of the region’s biggest soccer teams, star players and cryptocurrency exchanges are surrounded by a flurry of activity.

Most recently, 2020 CONCACAF Champions League champions – Tigers Femenil – sold a player to Angel City on a crypto exchange backed by Bitso – the top Mexican and Latin American exchange.

Bitso participates in the first Crypto Player Sale

Earlier this month, Tigres Femenil — the women’s soccer affiliate of UAL Tigres Club, winners of the 2020 CONCACAF Champions League — confirmed that it had sold a player in a cryptocurrency transaction.

The player in question is Stefany Ferrer, a Brazilian midfielder who grew up in Spain. Ferrer moved to Angel City, a new club in the US owned by celebrities like Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria, Mia Hamm, Becky G and Serena Williams.

The amount of the transfer fee does not appear to be made public, nor does the type of token used to fund the transaction. However, the transfer was made in partnership with Bitso, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms in Mexico (and Latin America).

El Financiero has reported that the deal is the first player sale made using cryptocurrency and follows a deal last November in which Bitso became Tigres’ main sponsor. The move was a major breakthrough at the time — as no other crypto exchange had previously sponsored a professional Mexican team.

Bitso is increasingly expanding its activities to include football

Bitso has also sought to expand its reach in Mexican football by signing a sponsorship deal with the Mexico national team ahead of this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

At the end of last month, the company signed a one-year deal with the Mexico national team. Accordingly, the Exchange’s brand name will appear on Mexico national team training shirts and billboards at home stadiums. As part of the deal, Bitso will also issue a series of national team-themed non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The company, which will achieve unicorn status in 2021, has expanded its reach beyond domestic soccer into Brazil, where it also has a growing user base. Last month, the company signed a sponsorship deal with a powerhouse of South American football: São Paulo Futebol Clube, the club announced on its website. Aside from the sleeve sponsorship, the deal also allows fans to purchase exclusive tickets for Bitso customers using the cryptocurrency.

Learn more about the leading Latin American exchange – Bitso

Bitso is a global cryptocurrency exchange founded in Mexico. It was founded in 2014 by Ben Peters, Pablo Gonzalez and Daniel Vogel. Daniel Vogel is the current CEO. Bitso is the first Latin American company and one of the few crypto platforms to be regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission under the Distributed Ledger Technology Framework.

Bitso is Mexico’s first bitcoin exchange that also powers the Ripple gateway, which enables international flows of pesos, US dollars and bitcoin with the goal of facilitating remittances from the US to Mexico.

In 2016, through a partnership with Zmart Group, Bitso began selling over-the-counter bitcoin at Mexican convenience stores, offering bitcoin at more than 29,000 locations. In the same year, the company closed a $2.5 million investment round with various investors including Digital Currency Group, Monex, Variv Capital and Xochi Ventures. At the time, Bitso had 20,000 customers and processed approximately $2.5 million worth of transactions per week. One of their stated primary goals is to provide services to the unbanked people of Mexico, who make up almost half of the population.

In 2018, the platform was announced as one of Ripple’s first “preferred digital asset exchanges,” along with Bittrex and Coins.ph. Thomson Reuters has started using Bitso to source its quotes for various cryptocurrencies.

In 2019, the exchange had 750,000 users in Mexico. In October, Ripple invested in the company to expand its operations in Latin America. Two months earlier, Bitso became the first licensed distributed ledger technology (DLT) exchange in Latin America.

In 2020, the company announced that it had surpassed one million customers, 92% of whom are Mexican, after increasing their trading volume by more than 300% in 8 months. In addition, Bitso officially started operations in Argentina in February this year.

In May 2021, the company began operations in Brazil and shortly thereafter announced a Series C investment round led by Tiger Global and Coatue, raising $250 million and valuing the company at $2.2 billion.

The company will start operations in El Salvador in September 2021.

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