Binance continues to invest in the South American cryptocurrency market.
In its South-American advance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world announced that it hired Henrique Meirelles.
Meirelles is a well-known figure in Brazilian politics, and the top Crypto-exchange hired him to participate in the company’s global counsel council.
The exchange confirmed the agreement in a statement and stated that it “will be disclosing more details about this initiative in the near future.”
Brazil’s Former Central Bank President
Meirelles served as the Secretary of Finance and Planning in Brazil’s largest State government – São Paulo until April this year.
In an exclusive interview with Brazil’s “Portal do Bitcoin”, Meirelles revealed the reasons for his hiring and discussed the company’s plans for joint operations in Brazil, particularly what he refers to as “our dialogue with the Central Bank”.
He claims that the exchange intends to “limit the process of self-regulation, with systems based on technology that primarily ensure the origin of currency,” referring to control processes designed to prevent illegal activities such as money laundering.
The Brazilian businessman admits that he still needs to study the Bill of Rights governing cryptocurrency in Brazil, which is currently awaiting a vote in the House of Representatives to determine how to make more concrete proposals.
Who is Henrique Meirelles
Meirelles is one of the most important finance experts in the past decades, regarding Brazil’s economy.
From 2003 to 2011, he was President of the Central Bank under Lula’s administration – and from 2016 to 2018, he served as Economy Minister under Michel Temer’s administration.
Aside from serving as the president of multiple private banks, Meirelles also ran for President in Brazil’s 2018 election. The politician finished 7th in the race, earning 1,2 million votes.
Binance’s Advances in South America
The hiring of such an influential political figure is one of the many investments Binance is making in South America.
A month ago, the cryptocurrency exchange announced a partnership with Mastercard in order to implement a cryptocurrency debit/credit card, named “Binance Card”.
Binance and Mastercard’s relationship intends to provide crypto alternatives to regular fiat currency transactions for merchants. The new concept was launched by the two corporations in Argentina before spreading to other areas of the world.
These advances make sense once you consider that Latin America is the region with the most Bitcoin owners in the world.
A large chunk of that number comes from South America’s most populated country, Brazil. The country known for its soccer prowess owns 18% of all cryptocurrencies in the region.
