BTG Pactual, an investment bank in Latin America, has launched a dollar-backed stablecoin on its crypto platform Mynt. The BTG Dol is the world’s first dollar-backed stablecoin issued by a bank.
BTG Pactual said on Tuesday that the BTG Dol stablecoin is the first dollar-backed stablecoin issued by a bank. The bank in São Paulo, Brazil, enables clients to “dollarize a portion of their equity in an easy, quick, and secure manner.”
BTG Dol is available for purchase beginning at 100 real ($20) on the bank’s 2021-launched crypto app Mynt, which now accepts 22 cryptocurrencies.
Stablecoins, unlike cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether, are tied to traditional financial assets such as fiat currencies, typically the U.S. dollar.
They let investors and traders keep their funds in the digital asset ecosystem without being fully exposed to the volatility that is characteristic of the majority of cryptocurrencies.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, the market capitalization of stablecoins is over $133 billion with a 24-hour trading volume of nearly $39 billion.
The larger stablecoins, such as USDT and USDC, are issued by private corporations and, as such, have been subject to heightened regulatory scrutiny, especially since the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin UST last year.
