Ramp Network, a revolutionary startup that provides payment infrastructure, recently established a local establishment in Brazil, with ambitious plans to expand into Latin America. This groundbreaking move will see the company offering its software development kit (SDK) to clients, enabling end-users to buy crypto with an end-to-end, non-custodial on-ramp, while also providing a crypto to fiat off-ramp.
Why Latin America, one might ask? Well, Łukasz Anwajler, CTO at Ramp, finds it to be a promising market. Brazil alone ranks seventh on the list of countries with the highest crypto adoption, accounting for a noteworthy portion of global crypto value received last year (9.1% to be precise).
This dive into the Brazilian market was partly prompted by recent regulatory clarity, including the creation of a “virtual service provider” license for digital asset companies. Many companies are following this trend, indicative of the untapped potential the Latin American market holds. Notable among them is Coinbase, which recently integrated the Brazilian government’s payment system, Pix, opening the floodgates to crypto purchases with Brazilian reals.
Ramp plans to establish robust connections with local payment systems like Pix as a primary step in Brazil. Their vision doesn’t stop there, with Brazil being seen as a launch pad for their broader Latin American ambitions. In a recent boon towards this objective, Ramp added the Brazilian real and other Latin American currencies to their portfolio, giving users the added ability to purchase crypto via card payments.
Their expansion is fuelled by a significant $70 million fundraising from a Series B round, co-led by Mubadala Capital and Korelya Capital in November 2022. With this financial backing, Ramp has set itself up as a facilitator for crypto transactions, offering integrations for websites and applications to do the same.
While it’s an exciting landscape for Ramp, prospective investors should also be aware of the inherent risks associated with the market volatility, security concerns and regulatory uncertainties inherent in the rapidly evolving crypto world. Yet, the direction of growth seems to be upwards, and Ramp’s larger clients, including Argent, Trust Wallet, Axie, Brave and Opera, is a testament to its robust and reliable system.
The move into Brazil paints an optimistic picture of the potential that crypto holds in bridging the gap between traditional finance and the digital finance world, a milestone that will potentially reshape the economic landscape of Latin America and beyond. It’s indeed an exhilarating time to be part of the crypto revolution!
Source: Coindesk
