E-Commerce Giant MercadoLibre Discloses $7.8M Bitcoin Buy

The Latin American retailer said the purchase was in the last quarter.

AccessTimeIconMay 5, 2021 at 8:21 p.m. UTC
Updated May 9, 2023 at 3:18 a.m. UTC
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Latin American e-commerce giant MercadoLibre disclosed a $7.8 million bitcoin purchase on Wednesday, making it the latest publicly traded company to park bitcoin on its balance sheet.

The Argentina-based company said in an earnings report the purchase happened in the last quarter and was part of its treasury strategy. MercadoLibre trades on Nasdaq as MELI.

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  • Though far from the lofty bitcoin acquisitions of MicroStrategy (roughly $2.2 billion) or Tesla ($1.5 billion), the investment by MercadoLibre represents a strong step toward mainstreaming bitcoin as a payment option.

    The largest e-commerce player in Latin America, MercadoLibre unveiled a bitcoin-only real estate platform just last week. Its MercadoPago payments platform integrated bitcoin in 2015.

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