Brazilian financial services giant XP has officially launched its crypto trading platform XTAGE, which was built on major American stock exchange Nasdaq’s trading technology.
XTAGE will initially trade the world’s two largest cryptocurrencies, bitcoin and ether, but plans to expand its assets portfolio by the end of this year.
.@xpinvestimentos joins us for the Opening Bell to celebrate the XTAGE digital assets trading platform.
Leveraging @NasdaqExchange’s technology, XTAGE represents a key milestone in democratizing access to the digital assets market in Brazil. pic.twitter.com/DS3RXtWVpb
— Nasdaq Exchange (@NasdaqExchange) August 15, 2022
The platform was developed in partnership with Nasdaq and BitGo and crypto features will be integrated into the XP app. The new capability will allow XP’s 3.6 million users to make trades while staying on the platform. XTAGE is built on Nasdaq’s trading technology while BitGo will act as a custodian.
With hype around crypto definitely not abating, XP is ending a long hiatus after rivals stepped into the game to tap into the ever-expanding interests of trading cryptocurrency. In May, Nubank, the largest Brazilian digital bank, rolled out low-cost cryptocurrency trading to its clients via partnership with stablecoin issuer, Paxos.
To get some activity going on its network, XTAGE users will initially have access to an internal wallet where they can store their purchased bitcoins. Upon launch, however, they will not be able transfer funds to external wallets, a feature that XP plans to add in the future as it expands its offering and includes additional coins.
As per the joint statement , XP clients will be able to trade cryptocurrency at “super competitive fees.”
XP’s director of financial products explains: “The creation of XTAGE represents a major milestone in advancing on the digital assets market and in our ability to offer investors increased access to the emerging ecosystem. Through the technology partnership with Nasdaq, we are confident that XP will operate on an innovative and robust capital market infrastructure.”
Brazilians have not missed the cryptocurrency trend and the country has been a hive of activity related to crypto assets. Within Latin America, the nation was the cryptocurrency ringleader both on the regulatory side and on the development side. Brazil alone accounts for more than a quarter of the $500 billion crypto market in Latin America.
