Mercado Libre ends Mercado Coin and shifts its crypto push toward dollar-backed products

Mercado Libre is winding down one of the more visible corporate crypto experiments in Latin American commerce, ending Mercado Coin less than four years after the token was launched as part of a customer rewards push inside its marketplace and payments ecosystem. The decision does not amount to a retreat from digital assets altogether. Instead, it points to a narrower strategy: keep the payments rails, keep the wallet, keep selected crypto services, but move away from a volatile loyalty token that appears not to have become central to how most customers used the platform.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17.

Mercado Pago, the fintech arm of MercadoLibre, said earlier this week that it is discontinuing Mercado Coin, which had been introduced in 2022 as part of the group’s loyalty program. In Brazil, the company’s main market, users earned the token as cashback when they bought products on the e-commerce platform. The company said remaining Mercado Coin balances should be sold or used for purchases on MercadoLibre by April 17, and that any balances left untouched after that point will be converted into Brazilian reais.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17. A separate account of the phaseout says users will no longer be able to buy, sell or receive cashback in Mercado Coin after that date, but can still sell holdings, spend them as purchase credit or allow conversion into local currency.MercadoLibre's fintech terminates its cryptocurrency Mercado Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondarySAO PAULO, March 31 (Reuters) - Mercado Pago, the fintech arm ‌of e-commerce firm MercadoLibre, said ‌on Tuesday it is discontinuing its cryptocurrency, ​called Mercado Coin, which it had launched in 2022 as part of its loyalty program. * Clients in ‌Brazil, the ⁠group's main market, earned MercadoCoins as cashback when buying ⁠products on the e-commerceplatform. * Mercado Pago said that since 2024 the ​focus has ​been onthe "Meli ​Dolar", a stablecoin ‌priced in U.S.

That timetable matters because it shows Mercado Libre is not leaving the product in limbo. The company has set a clear exit path, told users what their options are, and chosen automatic conversion rather than leaving stranded balances on the platform. For a business that operates at scale across e-commerce and fintech, that kind of operational cleanup is often as important as the strategic announcement itself. It also suggests management wants to close the chapter cleanly instead of preserving a symbolic token product that no longer fits where the company thinks demand is heading.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17.

Mercado Pago’s own explanation was restrained. Reuters reported that the company described the move as part of an evolution in its strategy in the crypto universe. That wording is revealing. It does not frame Mercado Coin as a failed concept in explicit terms, but it does indicate a pivot away from the original experiment and toward a different model. The most obvious replacement is Meli Dolar, the company’s dollar-linked stablecoin, which Mercado Pago said has been its focus since 2024 and is available in Brazil, Mexico and Chile at a one-to-one value against the U.S. dollar.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17. Decrypt likewise described the broader shift as a move away from the loyalty token and toward a dollar-backed stablecoin product that the company now uses more centrally in its rewards and wallet offering.MercadoLibre's fintech terminates its cryptocurrency Mercado Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondarySAO PAULO, March 31 (Reuters) - Mercado Pago, the fintech arm ‌of e-commerce firm MercadoLibre, said ‌on Tuesday it is discontinuing its cryptocurrency, ​called Mercado Coin, which it had launched in 2022 as part of its loyalty program. * Clients in ‌Brazil, the ⁠group's main market, earned MercadoCoins as cashback when buying ⁠products on the e-commerceplatform. * Mercado Pago said that since 2024 the ​focus has ​been onthe "Meli ​Dolar", a stablecoin ‌priced in U.S.

Seen in that light, the shutdown reflects a larger commercial judgment rather than a narrow product tweak. Mercado Coin was designed to sit somewhere between cashback, loyalty points and crypto speculation. That hybrid model may have offered novelty when crypto enthusiasm was stronger, but it also asked ordinary shoppers to accept price volatility in a rewards product that most consumers usually want to be simple and predictable. Stablecoins solve a different problem. They do not promise upside, but they offer a form of digital dollar exposure that is easier to explain and, for many consumers, easier to trust for savings, transfers or rewards accounting.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17.

There is a broader industry angle here as well. Decrypt noted that other large Latin American financial players have already learned similar lessons, pointing in particular to Nubank’s Nucoin, which was shut down after a sharp collapse in value. That comparison should be treated carefully because each product had a different design and user base, but the direction of travel is similar: branded tokens tied to consumer ecosystems have struggled to prove durable mainstream utility, while stablecoins and more conventional crypto services have held up better as ongoing product categories. Mercado Libre appears to be acting before the legacy product becomes a bigger distraction.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17.

The conservative case for the move is straightforward. A listed company with a large payments arm should prefer products that are easier to govern, easier to explain to regulators and easier for mass-market users to understand. On that reading, winding down Mercado Coin is not anti-crypto at all; it is a sign that the company wants crypto features that look more like infrastructure than ideology. A dollar-linked instrument, especially in markets where currency weakness is a recurring concern, can be presented as a practical utility. A loyalty token whose value can move around is harder to defend if executives are trying to show discipline rather than experimentation.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17.

Critics of the decision, however, can make a fair point of their own. Mercado Coin was one of the few attempts by a major regional platform to integrate a native token into everyday shopping behavior at real scale. Closing it down narrows the field for more ambitious consumer-facing crypto experiments and may reinforce the view that large companies will eventually reduce crypto to back-end plumbing, branded stablecoins and trading access instead of more open-ended token economies.MercadoLibre's fintech terminates its cryptocurrency Mercado Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondarySAO PAULO, March 31 (Reuters) - Mercado Pago, the fintech arm ‌of e-commerce firm MercadoLibre, said ‌on Tuesday it is discontinuing its cryptocurrency, ​called Mercado Coin, which it had launched in 2022 as part of its loyalty program. * Clients in ‌Brazil, the ⁠group's main market, earned MercadoCoins as cashback when buying ⁠products on the e-commerceplatform. * Mercado Pago said that since 2024 the ​focus has ​been onthe "Meli ​Dolar", a stablecoin ‌priced in U.S. Supporters of broader crypto adoption could argue that companies are becoming too quick to abandon products that require patience, user education and a willingness to tolerate early volatility.MercadoLibre's fintech terminates its cryptocurrency Mercado Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondarySAO PAULO, March 31 (Reuters) - Mercado Pago, the fintech arm ‌of e-commerce firm MercadoLibre, said ‌on Tuesday it is discontinuing its cryptocurrency, ​called Mercado Coin, which it had launched in 2022 as part of its loyalty program. * Clients in ‌Brazil, the ⁠group's main market, earned MercadoCoins as cashback when buying ⁠products on the e-commerceplatform. * Mercado Pago said that since 2024 the ​focus has ​been onthe "Meli ​Dolar", a stablecoin ‌priced in U.S.

Officially, Mercado Libre is balancing those competing interpretations by emphasizing continuity in crypto even as it retires a specific coin. Reuters reported that Mercado Pago’s focus since 2024 has been Meli Dolar rather than Mercado Coin. Decrypt added that Mercado Libre still offers crypto trading and stablecoin-related services through Mercado Pago and continues to hold more than $38 million in bitcoin on its balance sheet. That combination matters because it shows the company is not repudiating the asset class in the way some institutional players did after earlier market downturns. It is making a narrower bet on which kinds of crypto products are worth keeping in a mainstream consumer business.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17.

What happens next is likely to matter more than the token’s obituary. If Meli Dolar and similar products gain traction, Mercado Libre may end up demonstrating that the commercially durable version of crypto inside large retail and fintech platforms is the least romantic one: fewer ecosystem tokens, more dollar proxies, more payments utility and tighter integration with existing commerce flows. If that model also disappoints, the episode will look instead like another reminder that even companies with huge scale and deep distribution have limits when they try to turn crypto incentives into everyday consumer habits. Either way, the end of Mercado Coin marks a useful test case in where corporate crypto is going in Latin America: away from flashy token experiments and toward products management believes ordinary users will actually keep using.Latin America’s Mercado Libre Pulls the Plug on Its Crypto Coinfinance.yahoo.com·SecondaryLatin America's e-commerce giant quietly killed its ERC-20 loyalty token four years in—while Nubank's Nucoin already died the same death. Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin. The company—which is bigger than Amazon in Latin America—announced through its Mercado Pago wallet that the token will stop functioning on April 17.