Airtm, a Mexico City-based digital wallet and exchange operator, has received $15 million in funding from the Stellar Development Foundation, or SDF, as it seeks to expand financial services and cryptocurrency adoption in Latin America. The investment, which is the largest SDF has ever made as part of its Enterprise Fund, will enable Airtm to integrate with Stellar in the coming year. As part of the Stellar network, Airtm will be able to better provide its users with access to global financial services. “Airtm exists because financial systems throughout the developing world are not aligned with their people's needs and …

Mexican cryptocurrency exchange Bitso has concluded a $250 million Series C capital raise, putting it in the upper echelons of Latin America’s fintech industry. The latest investment round gives Bitso a total value of $2.2 billion, making it the first Latin American cryptocurrency exchange to be worth over $1 billion. It’s also the third-most valuable fintech company on the continent. The raise was led by Tiger Global and Coatue, with additional contributions from Valor Capital Group, Bond and Paradigm. Daniel Vogel, Bitso’s co-founder and CEO, said it took the exchange six years to get its first million customers and less …

American e-commerce giant Amazon is developing a new service that will allow its customers to shop using digital currency, according to the company’s job postings. According to an official job application on Amazon, the company is now building a tech team to enable a new digital currency service. Currently known as a “Digital and Emerging Payments,” or DEP, project, the service will initially roll out in Mexico, allowing local people to buy crypto with cash to spend digital currency while shopping. The job posting reads: “We are looking for a leader to help us launch a new payment product starting …

Ricardo Salinas Pliego, chairman at conglomerate Grupo Salinas and Mexico’s third richest person, is plugging Bitcoin on social media. The billionaire with an estimated net worth of more than $13 billion as of January changed his Twitter bio over the weekend to include the Bitcoin (BTC) hashtag. Crypto Twitter users and some of Salinas' more than 840,000 followers reported noticing the change Saturday around the time the price of the crypto asset surged to more than $40,000 for the first time in 23 days. Welcome @RicardoBSalinas to the #bitcoin community. Let's join the #bitcoin movement! pic.twitter.com/an9wymsKE7 — Jay_OKEX_CEO (@JayHao8) February …

Brazil’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Mercado Bitcoin, has announced plans to expand across Latin America. Chief executive Reinaldo Rabelo named Chile, Mexico, and Argentina as among the jurisdictions it will expand into first, comparing the “regulatory culture” in those countries to Brazil’s. According to Useful Tulips, Mexico is currently the fourth-largest Latin American country by peer-to-peer Bitcoin trade volume, with Chile ranking fifth, and Argentina ranking seventh. The strong P2P trade volume suggest there may be significant demand from local traders that is not met by centralized platforms. The announcement comes alongside news of an investment round that saw Mercado Bitcoin …

Amid speculation on social media that United States President Donald Trump may still pardon Julian Assange before leaving office, lawyers are preparing the WikiLeaks founder for many possible legal outcomes as crypto users open their wallets. According to Twitter user Whale Alert, users have donated a sizable amount of Bitcoin (BTC) toward the legal defense of WikiLeaks and Assange in the last week. Yesterday, someone sent 8.48 BTC — roughly $280,000 at the time — to support the WikiLeaks founder, while another crypto user donated 4.51 BTC last Wednesday, a transaction worth $125,000. A donation of 8.48 BTC (281,195 USD) …

Ricardo Salinas Pliego, chairman at conglomerate Grupo Salinas and Mexico’s second richest man, has revealed to Cointelegraph in an interview that he bought his first Bitcoin in 2013, when it was worth around $200. That, according to the billionaire, was his “best investment ever”. After holding it all the way until its 2017 highs, he sold all his positions at $17,000 and bought it again later at a cheaper price. “We always return to the scene of the crime”, he joked. Now Salinas holds around 10% of his liquid portfolio in BTC and doesn't plan to sell any of it …

Mexican authorities report an increase in the use of crypto assets to launder funds by criminal syndicates in Latin America. In a Dec. 8 report from Reuters, the head of Mexico’s finance ministry’s financial intelligence unit, Santiago Nieto, described how cartels use crypto to launder money obtained in illicit activities. Neito asserts Latin cartels will typically deposit their ill-gotten gains into various bank accounts as sums of less than $7,500 — the threshold that would prompt banks to flag a transaction. The funds are then used to make a myriad of small quantities of Bitcoin (BTC), which can then be …

Ricardo Salinas Pliego, the second-wealthiest man in Mexico, has revealed that 10% of his “liquid portfolio” is invested in Bitcoin (BTC). The billionaire shared a video captured in “a Latin country” depicting banks throwing out garbage bags filled with paper money into a dumpster. He asserted that “paper money is worth nothing,” adding: “That is why it is always good to diversify our investment portfolio.” The video appears to show bags of Venezuelan bolivars being thrown out, including 10,000 bolivar notes issued in 2016 and 2017 before the country redenominated its banknotes in 2018 amid an escalating inflation crisis. Three …

Bitcoin (BTC) P2P marketplace Paxful has partnered with Spanish neobank Bnext to launch its first crypto debit card in Mexico. The partnership will allow Paxful’s Mexican customers to use their crypto funds to pay with a debit card in any national and foreign point-of-sale, or PoS, and even withdraw cash from ATMs without fees. Bnext customers will also have direct access to the P2P marketplace to buy and sell crypto. Paxful explained in the announcement that “strict banking regulations” in Mexico are encouraging people to focus on cryptocurrencies, and quoted figures from crypto exchange Bitso that revealed a growth of …

A report called “Encryption Trends in Mexico 2020/2021” surveyed a total of 353 representatives from companies throughout Mexico. The study, published by privacy research center the Ponemon Institute, indicated that 40% of the Mexican companies surveyed were looking to adopt blockchain and cryptocurrencies in some form. Out of this segment, 71% were focused specifically on crypto usage. The figures also showed that 51% of these companies were intent on implementing blockchain for asset management and transaction handling purposes, while 37% expressed an interest in the implementation of smart contracts. Many of these companies could ultimately use blockchain to improve their …

A recent study showed that Latin America represents 7% of the entire global cryptocurrency economy. Out of that segment, Mexico has captured almost 11% of all retail crypto payments since July 2019. El Economista cited research by Daniel Cartolin, a development representative from the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which showed that the region has received $24 million in retail crypto transactions and sent $25 million to other continents over the past year. The representative highlighted that remittances and trade are sectors with a major presence in retail crypto transactions within Latin America. The country's strong ties with both North America …