The largest Latin American e-commerce platform adds $7.8 million in Bitcoin to its treasury

Mercado Libre, the largest e-commerce platform in Latin America, has announced to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it acquired $7.8 million in Bitcoin in the first quarter of 2021. It stated in its report: "As part of our treasury strategy during the quarter, we purchased $7.8 million of Bitcoin, a digital asset that we will disclose in indefinite intangible assets".

The acquisition makes the Argentinian company the first major Latin American company to have access to Bitcoin through its vaults, and sees the company join MicroStrategy and Tesla in an exclusive club of companies that have previously declared to authorities that they hold BTC among their assets.

Just last week, major Japanese game developer Nexon announced that it had purchased 1,717 BTC for its balance sheet for approximately $100 million. Mercado Libre’s announcement makes it the 36th publicly traded company to hold Bitcoin under its treasury. Mercado Libre trades on Nasdaq as MELI.

Mercado Libre Bet Big on Bitcoin

In addition to the official announcement, the popular e-commerce portal’s relationship with Bitcoin is not new. As Cointelegraph en Español previously reported, at the end of April it enabled the use of Bitcoin in a number of verticals in the Argentinian market.

Additionally, Mercado Libre founder and former CEO Marcos Galperín has publicly announced several times that he has owned Bitcoin in his personal portfolio since 2013 and has expressed various bullish views on the Latin American cryptocurrency ecosystem, even saying that he believes Bitcoin is more valuable than gold.