Brazil’s Mercado Bitcoin to Issue 2 Renewable Energy Tokens: Report

Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, reached an agreement with Brazilian energy trader Comerc to release two renewable energy tokens, Reuters reported Wednesday.

• The first token will work as a cashback reward for Comerc customers who generate renewable energy through the company’s distributed generation system, Sou Vagalume. The company plans to allow the purchase of the token for a fixed amount and later to offer the digital asset for trading in a secondary market.
• Users of Sou Vagalume now get 15% to 20% off their total electricity bills.
• Comerc has 5,000 customers using its distributed generation system, although it expects to reach 150,000 customers by the end of 2022.
• Roberto Dagnoni, CEO of 2TM Group, the holding company for Mercado Bitcoin, said that if a customer has a monthly expense of 1,000 Brazilian reais (about $180), he would receive 150 Brazilian reais converted into tokens per month.
• According to Dagnoni, both companies are completing the legal and regulatory details and the product should be ready in December or January.
• Bitcoin Market and Comerc plan to launch a second token, backed by the International REC Standard, a certificate that documents electricity consumption from renewable energy sources. It is still in preliminary stages, Reuters reported.
• In June, Mercado Bitcoin raised $200 million from the SoftBank Latin America Fund in a Series B funding round . That was the largest B round ever in Latin America and SoftBank’s largest investment in a Latin American crypto company.