There Are Twice as Many Bitcoin Traders in Brazil as Stock Investors
Bitcoin faultfinders attempt to smear the cryptocurrency from all angles, but one thing that cannot be denied is that BTC has at this instant caught the attention of many around the world.
Consistent with facts from local reports in Brazil, there are more than twice the numbers of people investing in Bitcoin as opposed to those who trade stocks in Latin America’s biggest economy.
The number of Bitcoin investors in Brazil has at present exceeded the total number of individuals listed on the São Paulo Stock Exchange, Brasil Bolsa Balcão S.A. or B3. The nation’s three principal Bitcoin exchanges, which process about 95% of all cryptocurrency trades in Brazil, had 1.4 million registered clients in December 2017.
This figure is more than twice the 619,000 registered individuals in B3 towards the end of last year, reports Brazil’s largest media corporation Globo. There might as well be more Brazilian Bitcoin traders who use foreign exchanges or only trade offline.
The source of this approval, as stated by the owners of these exchanges, is the gigantic price rally last year. “The attribute that clarifies this is the price of Bitcoin,” said Rodrigo Batista, CEO of Mercado Bitcoin (Bitcoin Market), which added 750,000 customers in 2017, a jump of 275% in contrast to the previous year.
For André Horta of ‘Bitcoin to You,’ which serves 300,000 people, the decrease in the cost-effectiveness of other investments was a different factor that enticed investors to Bitcoin.
The deluge of investors attracted to Bitcoin ushered substantial growth to Brazilian exchanges but significantly disadvantaging their capacity to cope with customer demands. For instance, Mercado Bitcoin now records 5,000 new client registrations per day when a year ago that number was just 500. The resulting consequence of the burst in customer numbers is the astronomical number of complaints against the exchanges that are too inundated to cope.
To cope with the mounting number of investors from year to year at a rate of 3.5%, exchanges have had to fortify their IT systems and employ additional staff. ‘Bitcoin to You’ has increased its staff fourfold to 40.
With 350,000 listings, São Paulo-based Foxbit had to append service to fresh investors in mid-December. “From one day to the other, the quotidian volume has been rising five times above the normal and we have not been competent to meet this ultimatum,” said Guto Schiavon, founding partner of Foxbit. From 40 people in November, the company’s staffs were augmented to 60, and another 15 people were employed in January when the company reopened to the public.
