XP Inc., Brazil’s largest broker when measured by market value, has officially launched bitcoin trading services enabling its 3.6 million users to buy, sell and hold bitcoin, per a report from Brazilian publication ISTOE.
Xtage, the broker’s new digital asset trading platform developed in partnership with Nasdaq, opened operations today with a year-end goal of 200,000 active users. However, the platform currently holds capacity to support up to 500,000 users, and the company stated it has the potential to scale up to one million users, covering almost one-third of its existing clientele.
“Nasdaq’s robust and flexible infrastructure technology, designed to meet market demands, as well as current and future regulatory structures, will allow XP to scale its platform reliably and introduce new asset classes as they grow and evolve,” Roland Chai executive vice president for Nasdaq previously said.
The Xtage platform was initially launched this past May but was available as a pilot strictly for employees who tested the platform for over a month. Xtage will integrate with XP’s already existing infrastructure and will only support two digital assets, one of which is bitcoin.
“In the medium and long term, the potential is enormous, taking into account that today we have more than 3.6 million customers on the XP platform,” said Lucas Rabechini, director of financial products at XP.
Additionally, Bitgo will serve as XP’s custodian offering cold storage services to clients, though it is unclear whether or not users will be able to transfer their bitcoin off-platform.