Largest Investment Bank in LatAm Starts Offering Crypto Brokerage Services

On Monday, August 15, BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Latin America, debuted its crypto brokerage services.

Banks in Latin America and Brazil have been rushing to set their foothold in the crypto space. Amid uncertain economic conditions, demand for crypto assets in this region has shot up significantly. The announcement from BTG Pactual comes just on the same day when another competitor XP launched its services.

Dubbed Mynt, the crypto brokerage platform shall arrive as a separate product. However, there have been some deposit and withdrawal restrictions that exchanges have been facing owing to regulatory action. André Portilho, Head of Digital Assets said:

“We are working on this feature. In weeks or months, we plan to release. We think that clients will want to bring the assets to BTG, given the cases we had of withdrawal restrictions”.

Furthermore, the executive stated that they are also working to integrate stablecoin into their platform. However, Portilho declined to comment whether it would be the bank’s native stablecoin or one from a third-party issuer.

Cryptocurrencies Supported By Mynt

The Mynt platform by BTG Pactual will support five cryptocurrencies, to begin with. This includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Polkadot (DOT), and Solana (SOL). Portilho said: “We will list more coins, but that depends on customer demand and our internal project evaluation process”.

However, the executive also refrained from predicting the future price of cryptocurrencies. As reported by local news publication Portal do Bitcoin, Portilho said: “I don’t know if we’ve hit the bottom yet, for example”.

Interestingly, he also commented about the Bitcoin halving cycle and the bull run that follows. Portilho said: “The halving has become a bitcoin price drive myth. In the past it was undoubtedly important, but today it is no longer”.

With the largest investment bank in LatAm joining the crypto bandwagon, more financial players are likely to participate in the space.