Coinbase Ends M&A Talks With Brazilian Crypto Firm 2TM

Hannah Miller and Rachel Gamarski, Bloomberg News

Monitors display Coinbase signage during the company's initial public offering (IPO) at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, April 14, 2021. Coinbase Global Inc., the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, is set to debut on Wednesday through a direct listing, an alternative to a traditional initial public offering that has only been deployed a handful of times. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Coinbase Global Inc. and 2TM Participacoes SA scrapped talks over a possible purchase by the exchange of the Brazilian cryptocurrency brokerage, people familiar with the matter said.

The negotiations, which 2TM had hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to advise in, could have resulted in a controlling acquisition or a minority stake sale. 2TM declined to comment on the deal.

Coinbase is “committed to the Brazilian market and has local tech and business leadership in place,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. The U.S. crypto exchange hired former Uber and PicPay executive Fábio Tonetto Plein as a country director for Brazil last week and is expanding local hiring there.

The 2TM deal would have helped Coinbase’s push into international expansion, which it believes will help it generate more active users. The crypto exchange is also reportedly in talks to buy Turkish crypto exchange BtcTurk.

2TM raised $50 million in November from investors including 10T Holdings, a U.S. private equity firm focused on the digital asset ecosystem, and Tribe Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital fund. It also secured a $200 million capitalization from the Softbank Latin America Fund in July that valued the company at $2.1 billion, making it the second crypto unicorn in Latin America.

The company is most known for being the parent of Mercado Bitcoin SA, the first crypto brokerage firm in Brazil.

Coinbase’s stock closed at $123.56 on Tuesday, up almost 2% from a day earlier.