MercadoLibre, the Latin American giant of E-commerce with presence in almost 20 countries, recently began to warn users that listings related to cryptocurrencies will be excluded from its platform.
These warnings appeared just days after receiving a $ 750 million investment from PayPal, one of the largest payment processing companies in the world.
Prohibition of lists related to cryptocurrencies
The decision of MercadoLibre also involves the elimination of listings related to prepaid cards (gift cards, credit coupons, etc.) and digital coins used in video games. The measure will become effective soon, according to an email sent to users.
In the email, MercadoLibre points out that there are suppliers that have listings related to cryptocurrencies or prepaid cards for games and asks them to finalize them as soon as possible.
The Brazilian news chain Criptomoedas Fácil reports that only in Brazil, one of the 18 countries served by MercadoLibre. There are more than 5,630 ads related to bitcoins and more than 9,320 listings related to cryptocurrencies. Ripple (XRP), reportedly the most popular cryptocurrency on the Latin American platform, appears in more than 11,100 ads.
DiarioBitcoin found that most of these ads correspond to sales of the cryptocurrencies in question through the platform.
Last year, a bitcoin portfolio and a commercial processing service called Ripio partnered with MercadoLibre, so the platform could allow its users to withdraw funds directly received in bitcoin. Both MercadoLibre and Ripio are Argentine firms.
It is not yet known why the retailer is removing the lists related to cryptocurrencies. The platforms that had banned advertisements and products related to the cryptography space in the past pointed to several reasons that revolved around fraud, possible illicit activities and user safety.
In the past, MercadoLibre had partnered with an Argentine exchange so that users could buy cryptocurrencies through MercadoPago.
PayPal investment
It should be noted that the e-commerce giant has recently raised USD $ 1,850 million to boost its investment in logistics and invest in Fintech and payment solutions. The company’s main market, Brazil, has been under pressure thanks to Amazon’s presence in the region.
According to Bloomberg, MercadoLibre raised that huge amount of capital through a public offering of shares and through direct investments from companies that included PayPal Holdings.
MercadoLibre allegedly made an offer of common stock for 1 billion dollars, at a price of $ 480 per share, which makes it one of the largest sales of shares that an Argentine company has made in the last ten years. At that time, offers for sale exceeded $ 6 billion, which helped their shares rose almost 5% to be negotiated to more than $ 500. Since then, it has dropped to $ 488.
The sale prompted PayPal to agree to make a strategic investment of $ 750 million in the company, while an affiliate of Dragoneer Investment Group was willing to buy $ 100 million of perpetual convertible preferred shares.
Sean Summers, marketing director of MarcadoLibre, said at that time that the company’s investors have the feeling that, Latin America is at a turning point in terms of growth of electronic commerce. The funds the company raised will be used in its largest markets such as, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. And will be divided equally between electronic commerce and financial technology.