Mercado Libre, Latin America's biggest online retailer, launches Mercado Coin.
Crypto tokens as part of cashback programs for retailers have been tipped as a possible future use case of cryptocurrency.
That prediction is slowly starting to materialize.
According to a Reuters report, Mercado Libre, Latin America's biggest online marketplace (akin to a South American Amazon) launched its own cryptocurrency on Thursday.
Mercado Coin will be an ERC-20 token on Ethereum and will be used to earn cashback rewards on the marketplace. The initial valuation will be $0.10. Marcos Galperin, CEO of Mercado Libre, announced the news on his Twitter account:
Galperin called the launch a "major impulse to Mercado's loyalty program" and "a step towards democratizing financial inclusion in Latin America."
For now, Mercado Coin will be limited to Brazil and is already available to the first 500,000 customers. Mercado Libre expects to roll out the token to all its 80 million Brazilian users by the end of August. An expansion beyond Brazil is currently not planned, according to the press release.
Mercado Coin will be tradeable via the company's fintech arm Mercado Pago and will not be available on other exchanges. According to information from Decrypt, Riplo, an Argentinian cryptocurrency exchange, developed the technology behind the token.
Mercado Libre has previously put BTC on its balance sheet.
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