Owner of Brazil’s Largest Crypto Exchange Plans to Launch Quantitative Trading Service

This article is part of CoinDesk Brasil, a partnership between CoinDesk and InfoMoney, one of Brazil's leading financial news publications. Follow CoinDesk Brasil on Twitter.

2TM, the holding company for Mercado Bitcoin, Brazil's largest crypto exchange by market valuation, plans to launch a crypto asset manager focused on quantitative trading, the company confirmed to Brazilian financial media outlet InfoMoney on Thursday.

• 2TM expects to launch the service in partnership with Giant Steps, a Brazilian asset manager with $1.49 billion under management and more than 100,000 investors. Giant Steps would hold a minority stake of the service, 2TM said.
• According to Giant Steps, although the Brazilian quantitative trading segment has experienced “high growth rates” in recent years, it represents no more than 2% of total fund assets in the South American country.
• In addition to Mercado Bitcoin, 2TM owns the over-the-counter (OTC) trading firm MezaPro and the equity token platform ClearBook, among other companies.
• Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global (COIN) is in talks to acquire 2TM, in a transaction that could be closed by the end of April.

This article was translated by Andrés Engler and edited by CoinDesk. The original Portuguese can be found here.