The stock of US top crypto exchange Coinbase is up 12% today after the company revealed plans to expand its operations to Brazil. The exchange has promised to deliver a platform that allows Brazilians to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using the country’s currency, reais.
Coinbase also said it would support reais withdrawals through Pix, a Brazil-based instant payment platform. In addition, the company will provide its users with customer support in Portuguese 24 hours a day.
In a statement, Nana Murugesan, the Coinbase Vice President of International and Business Development, said the company has a strong foundation in Brazil. He disclosed that the exchange created a tech hub in the South American country back in 2021 to support upcoming Web3 developers.
Murugesan also said that Coinbase’s investment division, Coinbase Ventures, had invested heavily in crypto firms in Brazil, including Ledn and Hashdex.
The COIN Stock
Coinbase listed its stock COIN on Nasdaq in April 2021. Since then, many financial analysts have regularly claimed that the exchange’s shares are crypto in disguise because they tend to follow the crypto market movement. As of this writing, the stock is changing hands for $84.23 per share.
The COIN price increase comes at a time when most United States tech stocks are posting gains. Moreover, being a tech-heavy stock exchange, Nasdaq has also increased by 1.57% or 185 points.
The Brazil expansion becomes Coinbase’s first move since announcing last week that it was looking to increase its presence on all continents except Antarctica. As the company seeks to become a global brand, Coinbase said it would strive to offer its products in compliance with the crypto policies of various countries.
Once Coinbase actualizes its expansion plans, it will be able to compete with globally recognized exchanges like Binance.
Why Brazil?
Brazil has the biggest economy in Latin America and ranks third in the Americas, only behind Canada and the United States. The country is also crypto-friendly. Currently, Brazil has the highest number of Bitcoin ETFs in the Latin America region. In addition, most banks operating in the country offer investors a certain level of exposure to crypto assets.