Coinbase Global, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the United States, is on track to complete its acquisition of 2TM, a Brazilian holding company that owns Latin America’s largest bitcoin brokerage, Mercado Bitcoin, by the end of April.
According to local daily O Estado de S.Paulo, which did not specify how it received the information, the negotiations began last year as part of Coinbase’s effort to expand its operations.
Coinbase and 2TM did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Binance is also on the search for acquisitions in Brazil, the newspaper reports, citing forecasts for the country’s cryptocurrency industry to reach 120 billion reais ($25.3 billion).
Brazil’s crypto unicorn 2TM would provide Coinbase with the leverage necessary to establish itself as the market leader in Latin America.
The holding company that owns Mercado Bitcoin, Meubank, MB Digital Assets, Bitrust, Blockchain Academy, and MezaPro was recently valued at around $2.2 billion in a Series B fundraising round spearheaded by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.
Additionally, the acquisition enables 2TM, which has already acquired many businesses in Brazil, to accelerate its Latin American expansion by expanding into Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina.
Mercado Bitcoin will have 3.2 million customers in 2021, up from 1.1 million last year, the company recently told CoinDesk, adding that its trading volume would hit $7.1 billion.
2TM raised $200 million in a Series B investment round in June and another $50 million in a November follow-on deal, valuing the business at $2.1 billion.
Amid a Brazilian crypto adoption boom that more than tripled stablecoin trading in 2021, big exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, and Crypto.com shifted their focus to the Latin American country.
Coinbase announced the establishment of an engineering hub in Brazil in November 2020 and posted various opportunities to develop its team there.
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