- The company’s Xtage platform will start by offering Bitcoin and Ether to its customers, but plans to add other digital assets soon.
- The crypto crisis has not stopped the expansion plans of XP (NASDAQ:XP) Inc. as its directors believe that the market will continue to grow.
- The company will have to face competition from other strong rivals in Brazil such as Nubank, Itaú Unibanco and BTG Pactual.
Brazilian low-cost financial services provider XP Inc (XP.O) announced the launch of its Xtage cryptocurrency trading platform by the middle of next month, where only bitcoin and ether will be offered initially.
However, the company’s director of financial products, Lucas Rabechini, said that by the end of 2022, the company, which has 3.6 million customers, expects to incorporate other digital assets, as reported by Reuters.
Customers deemed by XP to have an "adequate investment profile for such operations" will have the opportunity to access the platform in mid-August, as it is currently only available to employees. The company explained that the cryptocurrency trade carried out through the Xtage platform will comply with all user eligibility rules, as well as with the level of risk that each one decides to assume.
By the end of the year and early 2023, the São Paulo-based platform will add another 10 cryptocurrencies to its digital trading offering, Rabechini said.
Despite the crypto winter, the plans do not stop
For the executive, the current cryptocurrency crisis, which has eroded almost half of the value of Bitcoin, has not prevented the company from continuing its expansion plans in the crypto industry, since they are confident that the business will prosper in the long term.
"You can say 'the volume has been weak, there will be few orders,' but we see this market systematically growing over time," Rabechini said. However, he acknowledged that it is not something to ignore, but it is also not a factor of concern. "Our long-term vision is not just about price”, but also about the blazing-fast technology for order execution, which the company developed together with Nasdaq Inc, he added. Asked about other digital assets such as non-fungible tokens (NFT), Rabechini said that they are under study, but that there is nothing defined about them for now on the platform.
The initial release of XP’s Xtage platform was in May, but company employees began testing it in July to validate its operability.
Among the company’s strongest competitors are other Brazilian financial services companies such as Nubank, Itaú Unibanco and BTG Pactual, which also plan to provide cryptocurrency trading services for their clients.