The most valuable company in Latin America, Mercado Livre, will now bet on crypto trading. According to the company’s creator and CEO, Marcos Galperin, cryptocurrency transactions will soon arrive on the e-commerce platform. The news was announced on Monday (22). The new functionality has been tested by some users since the beginning of November, and will be present in the Mercado Pago payments application from the end of November. The initiative does not come by chance, after all, the institution bought, in May of this year, around 142 BTC. This amount is worth US$ 8 million (just over R$ 44.5 million)
What this article covers:
How will cryptocurrency transactions in the paid market work?
According to the e-commerce giant, this week it will be possible to sell, buy and store your assets in e-wallets (digital wallets). In other words, in addition to brokerages that trade digital currencies, we will now be able to store these currencies in the paid market application itself, and trade them in a much more democratic market.
Source/Playback: original
The initiative represents a big step for those who invest or want to invest in crypto assets, but found the whole process too complicated. Now, with an institution of this size, already known to many in the field of e-commerce, crypto trading promises to become increasingly simple and accessible to the general public.
There are at least three ways to get cryptocurrencies. The most common is through the purchase in exchanges (brokers). Exchanges are like a large cryptocurrency “shopping mall”, where you can check the price of cryptos, the currencies that are listed for sale, purchase actions, etc. It is important to pay attention to the credibility of the brokerage, to avoid scams. We can mention some of the most well-known brokers, such as Binance, FoxBit, BitPreço, etc. However, exchanges are not recommended for storing assets, as they are vulnerable to hackers and future problems involving the brokerage. It is recommended that you store your values in digital or physical wallets.
The other, less common way of buying and selling digital currencies is P2P (peer-to-peer) or peer-to-peer, which consists of direct negotiation between seller and buyer. That is, there is no intermediary in the business, such as a brokerage. The seller sets his price and it is up to the buyer to accept it or not.
The third way, even less common, is mining. Mining, in a nutshell, consists of using a machine (computer), which performs the process of validating the blocks of the cryptocurrency blockchain, adding new records in the chain of blocks. In this process, the miner ends up profiting an amount of that crypto,
What are these cryptocurrencies?
Digital currencies such as Bitcoin are characterized by decentralization. That is, there is no central regulatory body, such as the central bank, to issue new banknotes. They are based on blockchain technology (chain of blocks), which is like a ledger, which persists in asset transactions and provides security to investors. Anonymity is also guaranteed, which attracts many privacy enthusiasts.