Brazil's largest digital bank, Nubank, will offer low-cost cryptocurrency trading to its clients
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Nubank, the largest Brazilian digital bank, announced on Wednesday that it's users will be able to purchase and sell Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) on its platform. Nubank's parent business, Nu Holdings, said that it would allocate around 1% of its cash on its balance sheet to Bitcoin to express its confidence in the cryptocurrency. Paxos' blockchain infrastructure will supply the crypto trading and custody service.
According to Paxos, the product will be gradually made available to Nubank users in Brazil to reach all of its customers by the end of July. In terms of future cryptocurrency availability, the company "will do frequent curation to add more."
The users will be able to purchase and sell crypto with Brazilian reals but will not be able to withdraw or deposit crypto at first, Paxos said on Thursday.
Brazil has been witnessing a significant increase in cryptocurrency usage. According to the Brazilian tax authority Receita Federal, Brazilians transacted $11.4 billion in stablecoins between January and November 2021, which is nearly thrice the amount traded in 2020.
As per the company's website, Nubank previously enabled its users to invest in crypto only through exchange-traded funds that were available through its investment unit, NuInvest.