Mercado Libre is shutting down Mercado Coin on April 17, 2026, bringing an end to the token’s buy, sell, and cashback functions. The decision reflects a clear strategic shift away from a consumer loyalty token and toward a payments model built around MUSD, the company’s U.S. dollar stablecoin.
For users, the transition comes with a defined path rather than an abrupt cutoff. Anyone still holding Mercado Coin will have a limited window to either sell it through Mercado Pago or use it for purchases on Mercado Libre before the service ends.
Mercado Libre is closing the chapter on Mercado Coin
After April 17, Mercado Coin will no longer function inside Mercado Libre’s ecosystem as an active rewards asset. Any balances left after the deadline will be automatically converted into local fiat currency, such as Brazilian reals, preserving the remaining value for users.
That makes the next few days operationally important for anyone still exposed to the token. Users can either liquidate their Mercado Coin through Mercado Pago or spend it on the Mercado Libre marketplace before the cutoff arrives.
The move effectively closes a four-year effort to build a loyalty layer around a proprietary digital asset. By retiring Mercado Coin, the company no longer has to maintain the infrastructure tied specifically to tokenized cashback, trading functionality, and the broader lifecycle of a rewards token.
The company is prioritizing payments over tokenized loyalty
What replaces that model is not a retreat from digital assets altogether, but a narrower and more practical focus. Mercado Libre is reallocating attention and resources toward MUSD, using a dollar-backed stablecoin as the center of its transactional design instead of a volatile, platform-specific rewards token.
That shift changes the logic of the system. A stablecoin-based structure is better suited to everyday payments and cashback because it offers more predictable settlement characteristics and reduces the operational complexity that comes with managing a separate token economy.
The company is not abandoning crypto exposure at the treasury level, however. Mercado Libre still holds 570.4 Bitcoin, valued at about $38.85 million, showing that its balance-sheet strategy remains linked to digital assets even as its product strategy moves toward stablecoin utility.
Concentrating payment flows around a stablecoin can reduce volatility-related reconciliation issues, streamline payout mechanics, and narrow the fraud and AML workload to a more consistent set of fiat-pegged transfers.
Mercado Libre is choosing predictability over experimentation in its consumer payments layer. The end of Mercado Coin removes a token-specific settlement track and reinforces a broader preference for payment rails built around stability, utility, and lower operational friction.