In brief
- Brazilian cashback company Méliuz has announced a $28 million Bitcoin investment.
- The publicly traded firm says it’s the country’s first Bitcoin treasury.
- The idea, according to Méliuz, is that shareholders will get a better return on their investment.
Publicly traded Brazilian fintech company Méliuz has dubbed itself the South American’s first Bitcoin treasury company after spending over $28 million on the cryptocurrency.
Méliuz, a Brazilian household name that offers customers cashback coupons and trades on the country’s oldest stock exchange (B3: CASH3), first announced its plans to buy Bitcoin in March, sending its stock soaring.
And on Friday, after announcing it had snapped up 274.52 BTC for $28.4 billion, at an average price of $101,703 per virtual coin, its shares rocketed even more—recently trading up 26%.
“Rather than just allocating part of its cash to Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation or currency devaluation, the company has repositioned its purpose to act by maximizing the amount of Bitcoin per share,” the company said in a statement.
Ray Nasser, who heads up the Latin America arm of trading firm BlockFills, told Decrypt that the company was copying Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) to help get shareholders more value for money.
Méliuz went public in 2020 but had troubles—like many other Brazilian companies—amid the country’s high interest rates.
“The company lost its relevance over the years, and its stock price went down,” he said. “Although it made a turnaround in 2024, it’s doing what Strategy is doing now, it’s riding a hype. Bitcoin is an excellent reserve. It has something to do with its core business but not entirely.”
He added: “This is a shift away from its core business but its stock has seen the hype and benefits. It’s working out for them.”
Bitcoin treasuries are companies that buy Bitcoin and allow investors to get exposure to the price of the cryptocurrency by buying the firm’s stock.
American software firm Strategy started buying Bitcoin in 2020 and has since sped up its buys as the price of its stock has rocketed.
A number of other Nasdaq-listed companies in the U.S. are following suit to try, changing their business models to focus on Bitcoin accumulation.
Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy, is the region’s biggest digital asset market, and has the most amount of crypto ETFs.
Edited by James Rubin
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