Since May, the volume of bitcoin trades has grown rapidly in Brazil. Over the last few months, it has increased from US$1.65 million to US$2.6 million, showing a 158 percent monthly increase in trading volumes across all exchanges, as shown by recent data from Bitvalor, reported by Bitcoin Magazine.
The country's largest bitcoin exchange, Mercado Bitcoin alone has processed 28.48 percent of all market share or US$740,480 worth of bitcoin trades in August.
Daniel Novy, BaseBit founder, said that the majority of news related to bitcoin presented by major news outlets in Brazil is negative and influences the potent underbanked Brazilian population.
However, despite the negative perception of the digital currency, its low transaction fees and high international exchange rates are causing many merchants to become more open to using it. Moreover, the high international exchange rate of bitcoin, allows merchants to store their income in a liquid currency or asset. This is very important in countries like Argentina and Brazil, where strict financial regulations makes it extremely difficult to move the local currency out of the country.
"The problem we have in Brazil is that the only news that becomes mainstream is the bad ones. Bitcoin has a bad reputation here but anyway the merchants are definitely being more opened to it," Novy told Bitcoin Magazine.
