MercadoPago will soon let Brazilian customers buy, sell and hold bitcoin, Bitcoin Magazine reported. MercadoPago is the digital payments app of MercadoLibre.
MercadoPago Vice President and Country Manager Tulio Oliveira said per the report that the company has taken the time to study and learn about the crypto field, and that its offering has “transformational” potential.
MercadoPago offers access to credit lines, a free credit card and a simple account that can be used to make and receive payments, the report stated. The app is integrated with Pix, a Brazil-based money transmitting platform.
Oliveira said in the report that the company wants to duplicate the product in other markets in Latin America, although customers won’t be able to use cryptocurrencies at first.
The company has debuted the crypto feature for a small group of clients, and it will be rolled out more broadly in the coming weeks, according to the report.
In other news, a British man is the subject of an investigation and extradition request by U.S. authorities, Bloomberg reported.
The allegation is that when he was a teenager, Corey De Rose, now 22, helped hack an American citizen’s identity, get into his crypto wallet and steal over $8.5 million in cryptocurrency, according to the report.
De Rose managed to steal crypto for himself and his co-conspirators, taking 108.18 bitcoins, which came out to $300,000 at the time, the report stated.
De Rose was part of the larger collective called “The Community,” according to the report. The group conspired to take over $50 million in crypto from victims between 2017 and 2018 using SIM hijacking in which a person’s identity is stolen through gaining control of their cellphone number.
Lawyers for De Rose are arguing that he should stand trial in the U.K. as that was where the crimes occurred, the report stated. They have said De Rose is a suicide risk and is facing mental health issues.
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