Share this article
Nubank, Brazil’s Largest Digital Bank, Launches Bitcoin and Ether Trading
The trading and custody service is being provided by blockchain infrastructure company Paxos.
Updated May 11, 2023, 4:22 p.m. Published May 11, 2022, 5:36 p.m.
Nubank, the largest Brazilian digital bank by market value, is adding the option for customers to buy and sell bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) on its platform, the company announced Wednesday.
Nu Holdings, Nubank's parent company, also said it is allocating roughly 1% of the cash on its balance sheet to bitcoin to show its belief in the cryptocurrency.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
The crypto trading and custody service will be provided by Paxos’ blockchain infrastructure, Paxos told CoinDesk.
The product will gradually be made available to Nubank users in Brazil on Thursday, Paxos said, adding that it will reach all of its customers by the end of July. Regarding the available cryptocurrencies in the future, the company added that it “will do frequent curation to add more.”
According to Paxos, users will be able to buy and sell crypto with Brazilian reals, but initially won't be able to withdraw or deposit crypto.
Brazil is experiencing major crypto adoption growth. According to Receita Federal, the Brazilian tax authority, between January and November of 2021, locals traded $11.4 billion in stablecoins, almost triple the amount traded the previous year.
Until now, Nubank allowed users to invest in crypto only through exchange-traded funds available through its investment unit, NuInvest, according to the company’s website.
“There is no doubt that crypto is a growing trend in Latin America, one that we have been following closely and believe will have a transformational impact on the region. Yet the trading experience is still very niche as customers either lack information to feel confident to enter this new market or just get frustrated by complex experiences,” Nubank CEO and co-founder David Vélez said in a statement.
Nubank has 53.9 million users in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, according to its 2021 annual report. Last year, the bank reported revenues of $1.7 billion
In December, Nu Holdings went public at an initial valuation of $41.5 billion, making it one of Brazil's most valuable companies, though its market cap has since fallen to around $17.4 billion. As of February, Berkshire Hathaway owned about $1 billion worth of shares in the company, despite CEO Warren Buffett being famously critical of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.
In December, Paxos partnered with Mercado Pago, the digital wallet of Mercado Libre, Latin America’s largest e-commerce company by market value, to allow its users in Brazil to buy and sell bitcoin, ether and the stablecoin .
UPDATE (May 11, 19:39 UTC): Added info about Nu's bitcoin allocation and background on Nubank.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
JPMorgan Pushes Deeper Into Tokenization With Galaxy's Debt Issuance on Solana
Galaxy’s onchain debt deal, where JP Morgan acted as arranger, was settled in USDC stablecoin and backed by Coinbase and Franklin Templeton.
What to know:
- J.P. Morgan arranged Galaxy Digital’s commercial paper issuance on the Solana blockchain, one of the first of its kind in the U.S.
- Coinbase and Franklin Templeton bought the short-term debt instrument, settled in USDC
- Tokenization of real-world assets is gaining traction, with projections suggesting the market could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033.
Top Stories
