MercadoLibre today launched its own cryptocurrency, Mercado Coin. In a first stage it will be available only for clients in Brazil.
Marcos Galperin, founder and CEO of MercadoLibre, confirmed information. The Argentine businessman commented that the launch of this cryptocurrency is a “boost” for its customer loyalty program.
Mercado Coin has a launch cost of USD 0.10. It is a volatile cryptoactive and its market price is determined by bidders and buyers. For now, it is only available through the Mercado Pago application and not in cryptocurrency exchanges.
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According to its developers, it is an ERC-20 token that lives on the Ethereum network. The EthExplorer block explorer shows the existence of a token with the name «Coin Market», which had the last update to its code on August 2nd. There is also the token “Free Market Inc”, dating from July 24. It is worth clarifying that anyone can create a token and name it whatever they wantso these two tokens are not necessarily related to the Mercado Libre company.
The purpose of this token, according to pick up the news agency Archyde.com, is to give small rewards to MercadoLibre users according to how they use the platform. They will receive Mercado Coins for interacting with Mercado Pago, for using their delivery service, etc.
For custody and everything related to the sale of Mercado Coin, works in conjunction with the Ripio exchange. He has more than 8 years of experience in his country of origin, Argentina, and has also expanded to Brazil.
Fernando Yunes, Vice President of MercadoLibre Brazil, said that, although this first launch will be destined only for the Brazilian market, at some point they will expand to other countries. They clarify that they have no confirmed date for this expansion.
It should be noted that this is not MercadoLibre’s first foray into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. This same week CriptoNoticias reported how MercadoLibre would launch the trade for the purchase and sale of bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) through its platform. It was also reported by this means that the company has bitcoin in its treasury since May 2021as a store of value.
Update 8/18/2022: this article was updated to indicate the existence of tokens with the names “Mercado Libre inc”, and “Mercado Coin” on the Ethereum network.