BRL 17 billion investment from Mercado Livre, anonymity in cryptos and what matters in the economy

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Mercado Livre will invest BRL 17 billion in Brazil

The Free Market announced this Tuesday (22) a projection of investments of BRL 17 billion in Brazil in 2022, growth of 70% compared to the previous year.

The strategy: the largest ecommerce platform in Latin America stated that much of the money goes to Mercado Pago, a fintech of the group that offers digital wallet, bank account, credit to companies, etc.

In February, the retailer announced its intention to open four new distribution centers in Brazil in 2022, all in São Paulo. The objective is to double the capacity of parcel deliveries in the country.

Mercado Pago: fintech has been expanding its operations and in December last year it gave Brazilians the option to buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies in their digital wallet.

• Shortly thereafter, in January of this year, Mercado Livre took another step into the crypto world by buying a stake in broker Mercado Bitcoin and blockchain platform Paxos.

why does it matter: the Argentine company’s investment in Brazil, its most important market, comes at a challenging time for retailers operating in the country.

Magnifying glass on fuel stocks

With the sector attentive to the risk of shortages, the ANP (National Agency of Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels) determined this Tuesday that refineries and distributors report their fuel stocks daily.

What explains: the country is increasingly dependent on fuel that comes from abroad. While Petrobras spent more than 50 days without readjusting prices, the account for importing products was not closed, and the risk of shortages in the domestic market reached the ears of the government and the state-owned company.

Even after the mega-increase on the 11th, the sector assesses that the risk remains, since the period between the decision to import and the arrival of the ships takes between 45 and 60 days.

In numbers: In the first two months of this year, demand grew and Brazil’s dependence on diesel from abroad reached 41%. In gasoline, she went from 16.5%.

After fluctuating a lot in recent weeks, this Tuesday the lag of diesel in Brazil in relation to import parity was 14%. In gasoline, the negative difference was 11%. The data are from Abicom.

ICMS remains frozen: while they do not define how they will put into practice the new law of single tax collection in all states, the governors announced that they will extend the current fixed price of ICMS on fuel until the end of June.

The measure was taken in November and has been renewed since then.

More on fuels:

Stock market high since September

Even with the slight drop in commodities abroad, the stock market closed this Tuesday at a high of 0.96%, the 117,272 pointsreaching the highest level since September 2021.

The dollar maintained its downward trend and retreated 0.60%, BRL 4.91. This year, the real has already risen 13%according to Bloomberg, becoming the emerging currency that appreciated the most against the US currency in the period.

What explains: in a year in which the performance of the Brazilian stock exchange has been carried by commodities, this Tuesday the market’s attention was turned to the minutes of the Copom of the Central Bank.

• The monetary authority reinforced its concerns about the inflationary pressures generated by the war, including the oil price trajectory in its inflation projections.
• The actions of retailers, more linked to the local economy, were among the biggest increases of the day on the Stock Exchange. The positive performance of the indices in the US also contributed to the good mood here.

Employers on the rise: the shares of companies in the sector, which is also linked to local economic activity, had a positive day amid the government’s plans to resume launches of the Casa Verde Amarela program.

With the elections approaching, the government is preparing, after three years of paralysis, the first contracting of housing units subsidized with budget resources for low-income families.

In numbers: the Stock Exchange’s Imob (Real Estate Index), which tracks the prices of the main stocks in the sector, advanced 3.4% this Tuesday, above the Ibovespa. It was a relief in the face of losses of about 22% accumulated in the last 12 months.

Anonymity in Crypto

Anonymity has been part of the crypto world since its inception and is one of the cornerstones of transactions in this market. But the protection of identity, defended by many members of the sector, is also a way for criminals to emerge unscathed from their crimes.

Understand: scams known as “carpet pulls” are increasingly common in the market. In them, developers launch funding for their projects in the crypto world, but end up wiping out millions of investors without a trace.

Why anonymity? The ability to operate without declaring your name is a core tenet of blockchain technology and is advocated and practiced even by large investors.

• Among the reasons cited, there is the idealization of a more egalitarian market, in which entrepreneurs are judged by their technical knowledge, and not by their academic or family origins.
• Bitcoin itself, the largest cryptocurrency in the world, was developed more than a decade ago by one Satoshi Nakamoto, who to this day no one knows who he is – or who they are.
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• Cryptocurrency entrepreneurs and engineers also say they opt for anonymity for fear of possible regulatory repression and underscore the concern of making their growing wealth a target for thieves and hackers.