LATAM’s Largest Investment Bank BTG Pactual Launches Bitcoin, Crypto Exchange

BTG Pactual has launched Mynt, a new exchange for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Brazil focusing on education in the ecosystem.

• The largest investment bank in Latin America just launched a cryptocurrency exchange in Brazil.
• The exchange will only support bitcoin and one other cryptocurrency at launch.
• BTG Pactual holds about $200 billion in assets under custody.

BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Latin America, just launched a bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange in Brazil, per an announcement from the bank.

The bank’s new trading platform is called Mynt and will enable users to have direct access to bitcoin, placing it among the first leading financial institutions in Brazil to do so. Additionally, the investment bank with over $200 billion in assets under custody will provide educational content for all of its users about bitcoin once users have established an account.

"Content will be a part of Mynt at all levels,” Pedro Frazao, product manager at Mynt, said in an interview prior to the release.

“Any product we launch will come along with some content like a video or a paper that provide the means for the customer to understand more about what they're investing in, and if they have any questions the app has a 24/7 chat function,” Frazao continued.

Andre Portilho, partner and head of digital assets at BTG, said in that same interview that when he asked in Mynt's chat, "What is Bitcoin backed by?", the app issued the following response:

"Bitcoin's backing isn't physical. It is backed by the mathematics underpinning its blockchain, and this technology guarantees the safety of its transactions."

However, it currently remains unclear who will back Mynt and serve the custodian of the physical bitcoin. At launch, Mynt clients will not be able to withdraw their bitcoin from the platform in order to self-custody; however, the platform plans to enable such functionality in the future.

Nonetheless, the company still believes that the world of finance is headed into changing tides.

"Our vision is that crypto technology will do to the finance industry what the internet did to the information industry, it changed it completely," Portilho concluded in the interview.

BTG Pactual joins the ranks of other institutions entering the growing Brazilian market such as XP Inc., who just earlier today, released bitcoin trading services on its brand new platform – Xtage. Additionally, banking giant Santander began discussing plans to enter the ecosystem as well.