By George Ward
In its push to expand crypto payment, the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, announced that it has partnered with card payment giant Mastercard to launch a prepaid crypto card in Latin America. The collaboration will see the two firms unveil a crypto card to facilitate payment in Brazil.
Testing The Waters
According to Binance, the card will allow users to make payments with 13 different crypto tokens and charges a 0.9% fee. The crypto exchange noted that it would soon have a crypto cashback offer of up to 8% that will apply to ATM withdrawals at zero costs.
Meanwhile, the new card is in its testing phase and will be available in Brazil in the coming weeks, according to a Binance spokesperson. Guilherme Nazar, head of Binance Brazil, noted that the country plays a critical role in the crypto market and is relevant to Binance’s expansion in the LATAM region.
As a result, Binance will continue to invest in innovative services to meet the demand of local users and contribute to blockchain development in Brazil. The latest development comes after Binance carried out a similar project in Argentina in August 2022 with the same partner (Mastercard).
Furthermore, the firm rolled out a similar product in the European Economic Area in August 2020 after an extended consultation with authorities. Binance revealed in its press statement that Brazilians see cryptocurrency as more than an investment asset. The statement added that the exchange would further expand its services in the country.
Binance And WazirX’s Controversy
The back-and-forth argument over the ownership of the India-based crypto exchange, WazirX, has been raging on for some time with both parties disputing one another. In November 2019, the crypto community was about to witness one of its most prolonged disputes in recent years after the ownership of WazirX was uncontested.
Accordingly, Binance, in a published blog post as of then, revealed that it had acquired the crypto exchange with WazirX’s executives openly discussing the acquisition on social media. However, interestingly, WazirX found itself in trouble last summer, and the acquisition story took another turn.
The Indian authorities raided the exchanges’ Mumbai office over suspicion of WazirX facilitating money laundering involving 16 fintech firms in the country. Due to the weight of the allegation against the firm, Binance distanced itself from the troubled Indian crypto exchange.
In addition, the same blog post that announced the acquisition was edited to specify that it was only an agreement toward purchasing certain assets and intellectual property rights of the exchange.
Then, on August 5, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted that his firm does not own a share in Zanmai Labs, the parent company of WazirX. As expected, what took place were months of accusations and counter-accusations from the two entities over the ownership of WazirX.
Binance explained to the media that the initial acquisition deal wasn’t successful. WazirX’s officials countered Binance’s claims by stating that the purchase was successful but failed to provide proofs to back its response.