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South American Amazon launches crypto payments

The online retailer Mercado Libre, dubbed the 'South American Amazon', is now letting customers pay with its own cryptocurrency.

By Mike Hesp
• 3 min read
South American Amazon launches crypto payments

The online retailer Mercado Libre, known as the 'South American Amazon', is now allowing its customers to make payments with its own cryptocurrency.

Mercado Libre, the largest online retailer in Latin America, is enabling its nearly 80 million customers in Brazil to pay with cryptocurrency. To do so, the retailer created its own digital coin, Mercado Coin.

According to the company, this can be used to pay for products on the platform and earn cashback rewards.

The new way to pay will launch by the end of August and is currently only available in Brazil. The Ethereum-based token can also be traded on the company’s Mercado-Pago digital wallet. This wallet had already launched in December 2021. Users, however, won’t be able to hold their tokens in their own wallets for now.

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