Popular Latin American E-Commerce Site Bans Ads Selling Cryptocurrency

By Sumedha Bose

Mercado Livre, the largest e-commerce marketplace in Latin America based on the number of visitors, has decided to make a statement regarding cryptocurrencies.

After receiving a $750 million investment into the platform from Paypal, the site has decided to take down more than 10,000 listings related to virtual currencies. These ads mostly relate to various cryptocurrencies which were being offered for sale.

The site issued a notice requesting that all users on the platform take down their listings pertaining to virtual currencies before the date assigned to them. Failing to do so, all the listings will automatically be removed from its platform from March 19 onwards.

Mercado Livre operates in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The fact that this news comes after the hefty investment from Paypal, confirms that this is yet another example of a payment platform for traditional fiat currency trying to curb the growth of cryptocurrency.

In addition, Mercado Livre simultaneously banned listings for “pre-paid cards for games.” These new rules came into effect as of March 19.

The platform had a significant number of listings related to cryptocurrencies which in Spanish is “criptomonedas.” A search run by anyone on the site for “criptomonedas” would display approximately 9,326 advertisements. On top of that, 5,638 listings were associated with the search term “Bitcoin,” while 2,636 ads were found related to “ethereum.”

This news comes in just a month after Latin America’s giant investment bank, Banco BTG Pactual SA, announced its plans to experiment with virtual currency and enter the sector, with the launch of a security token. The bank anticipates to raise almost $15 million through a security token offering for its Reitbz token, which is allegedly going to be backed with distressed real estate assets in Brazil.