Mercado Bitcoin to Reopen Pix Withdrawals After $49M Bitcoin (BTC) Hack
Key Takeaways
- •Mercado Bitcoin plans to resume Brazilian real deposits and withdrawals via Pix sometime next week, according to a company representative's Tuesday announcement.
- •The planned reopening is the first concrete recovery step announced since a Nov. 2 intrusion drained an estimated $49 million in Bitcoin from the exchange's wallets.
- •Pix serves as the main fiat rail for Brazilian crypto platforms, meaning its suspension had cut off customers' primary route for moving reais onto and off the exchange.
- •The company has not specified an exact resumption date and has announced no recovery measures beyond the Pix reopening.
- •Founded in 2013 and headquartered in São Paulo, Mercado Bitcoin is a leading Latin American digital asset platform whose parent company, 2TM, received SoftBank Latin America investment in 2021.
Mercado Bitcoin, one of Brazil's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, will reopen deposits and withdrawals in Brazilian reais through Pix, the country's instant payment rail, at some point next week, a company representative said on Tuesday.
The resumption of real-denominated transfers marks the first tangible recovery measure announced by the exchange since a Nov. 2 intrusion drained an estimated $49 million in Bitcoin (BTC) from its wallets.
Restoring Access to Brazil's Main Payment Rail
Pix transfers are the primary channel through which Brazilian customers move local currency onto and off of digital asset trading platforms. The exchange had suspended the transfers following the Nov. 2 intrusion, and the planned reopening is the first concrete operational step announced since the incident, which saw an estimated $49 million drained from company wallets.
For customers, access to Pix effectively determines access to fiat on the platform: with real-denominated transfers halted since the intrusion, deposits and withdrawals in Brazilian reais through the rail have been unavailable, a constraint that will persist until service resumes. For a platform that reports serving millions of customers, the reopening restores the everyday fiat route for users of one of the country's largest digital asset exchanges.
The company has not specified an exact day for the resumption beyond indicating that deposits and withdrawals in Brazilian reais will return at some point next week, and no recovery measures beyond the Pix reopening have been announced so far.
About Mercado Bitcoin
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in São Paulo, Mercado Bitcoin is among the most prominent digital asset platforms in Latin America and has reported serving millions of customers in Brazil. Its parent company, 2TM, attracted investment from SoftBank's Latin America funds in 2021, underscoring the exchange's standing in the region's crypto sector.
About Pix
Pix is the instant payment system created and operated by the Central Bank of Brazil. Launched in November 2020, it enables real-time Brazilian reais transfers around the clock, every day of the week, and has become the country's dominant method for fiat deposits and withdrawals at digital asset exchanges.
This content was first published on COINOTAG: https://en.coinotag.com/mercado-bitcoin-reopens-pix-withdrawals-after-49m-hack
