Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of Latin America’s most relevant crypto and economic news during the last week. In this issue: Solana announces its expansion to Brazil, Tether seeks to expand in Venezuela, and Bitcoin Argentina advises to receive bitcoins in the upcoming asset regularization process.

Solana Announces Expansion to Brazil

The Solana Foundation, a nonprofit institution behind the organization and funding of Solana ecosystem initiatives, has reported it will expand to Brazil, opening a local group and announcing investments for over $10 million in Web3 projects.

The group is what Solana calls a “Superteam,” focused on developing apps and experiences using the Solana blockchain and its scalability. The Solana Foundation has already launched superteams in seven countries apart from Brazil, giving opportunities and paid jobs to hundreds of members.

The investment will be focused on Web3 initiatives linked to art, asset tokenization, and artificial intelligence. The foundation considered Brazil as one of its core expansion markets by 2024.

Diego Dias, head of Solana’s Latam group, stated:

Our intention at the Solana Foundation is to have a diminishing influence on the ecosystem and empower our community to lead the future of Solana.

Tether Hints at Expansion in Venezuela

Tether, the stablecoin company behind the issuance of USDT, the largest stablecoin in the cryptocurrency market, wants to expand its influence in Venezuela. The company is seeking an expansion manager responsible for “identifying and pursuing new business opportunities, maintaining relationships with existing customers, and collaborating with internal teams to develop go-to-market strategies.”

Tether’s announcement has been taken by some as surprising, given that the country’s cryptocurrency trading and mining operations have been significantly affected by the actions of the government after detecting that Joselit Ramirez, former head of Sunacrip, the national crypto watchdog, was involved in a multi-billion oil sales corruption scheme.

No more announcements about the activities the company aims to develop in the country have been issued.

Bitcoin Argentina NGO Advises Government to Receive Bitcoin in the Asset Ownership Regularization Program

Bitcoin Argentina, an NGO that aims to increase the level of Bitcoin adoption in the country, has advised the Argentine government to receive Bitcoin instead of dollars in the asset ownership regularization program included in the recently proposed Omnibus Bill.

Ricardo Mihura, president of Bitcoin Argentina, lamented that the proposed draft, which will be discussed in Congress, only allowed payments in dollars for regularizing cryptocurrency ownership. Mihura stressed that even if the bullish volatility of BTC would make it risky to sell this bitcoin “keeping them in the portfolio would further improve its reserve position, and nothing would prevent it from putting the bitcoin at any time as collateral to obtain foreign currency at a very low cost, if such were the needs for liquidity.”

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