Bitso vs Mercado Pago: a real exchange or a payments app

If you live in Mexico, you have probably noticed that the same app you use to pay for groceries, split a dinner or get paid for a Mercado Libre sale also sells bitcoin. Meanwhile, every Mexican friend who owns crypto seems to say "Bitso." These are two very different products that happen to overlap on one button: turning pesos into bitcoin.

Bitso is an exchange, where you trade against other people in a market with visible prices. Mercado Pago is a payments app with a crypto tab, where you ask for a quote and outside companies execute and hold the coins for you. That design difference drives what you pay, which coins you get, how cash gets in and whether your bitcoin can ever leave. Below is a side-by-side table, a round-trip cost calculation at three peso amounts, and a verdict for different kinds of users, including foreigners.

The core difference: an open market versus an in-app quote

Bitso's trading view, Bitso Alpha, shows an order bookA public list of buy and sell orders left by users. You see the exact prices others are willing to trade at.. Your order matches someone else's, and Bitso charges a published fee that depends on whether you are a maker or takerMaker: you leave a limit order waiting in the book. Taker: you buy at a price that is already posted. Takers pay slightly more.. When we checked the BTC/MXN book, the gap between the top buy and sell offers was about MXN 20 on a price of MXN 1.5 million, which is negligible.

Mercado Pago has no order book. You pick a coin, type an amount, and the app shows a quote that its help center says can change every 25 seconds. The published fee is 1.5% per transaction, and the quote may also contain a spreadThe gap between the price you are offered and the market price. It is not shown as a fee, but you pay it. that Mercado Pago does not disclose.

The legal setup differs too. At Bitso, pesos go through Nvio Pagos México, an electronic payment funds institution authorized by Mexico's banking regulator (CNBV), and crypto is run by Bitso International under a Gibraltar license. Mercado Pago's crypto page states that its "Mercado Pago Standard" brand only provides access to third-party services: Paxos and Ripio buy, sell, transfer and provide custodyWhen a company holds your crypto for you. Convenient, but you rely on it to move or release your coins. of the coins. Neither balance is covered by IPAB, Mexico's deposit insurer, because Banxico's Circular 4/2019 keeps Mexican financial institutions from offering crypto to the public.

Bitso vs Mercado Pago at a glance

On Mercado Pago's minimum: the page headline says "from $1" and the help article confirms one peso to buy, but another section of the same page shows MXN 50. Go by what the app asks for at checkout.

Round-trip cost in pesos: MXN 1,000, 10,000 and 50,000

The cleanest comparison is to buy bitcoin and sell it straight back to pesos with no price change, which isolates what each platform takes. We used Bitso's first fee tier and Mercado Pago's 1.5%, charging the sell fee on what is left after buying.

At every size, Mercado Pago costs nearly twice what Bitso charges takers and two and a half times what limit orders cost. On MXN 1,000 that gap is MXN 14 to 18, roughly a dollar. On MXN 50,000 it is MXN 700 to 900 per round trip, and it repeats every time you go in and out.

Three things the table leaves out:

• Bitso's tiers. If you already traded more than 20,000 in the last 30 days, the sell leg of the 50,000 example falls into the next tier (0.59% maker, 0.76% taker). That saves a few pesos.
• Spread. The Alpha book shows the real price. Bitso's simple view and Mercado Pago's quote may include a margin neither publishes. Before a large buy, compare the quote with the book price.
• Cash fees. Paying in at OXXO usually adds a store fee of about MXN 15 to 20 per deposit, which is another 1.5% to 2% on MXN 1,000.

For how these numbers stack up against Binance, cards, P2P and ATMs, see the crypto fees guide for Mexico.

Which coins each one offers

Bitso has 12 direct peso books in its public API: bitcoin, ether, USDT, XRP, Solana, Litecoin, Tron, USDC (the book Bitso labels "Digital Dollars"), PYUSD, TUSD, RLUSD and Decentraland. Counting pairs against dollars and other coins, the API lists 54 books. USDT, the most used stablecoinA cryptocurrency built to stay worth one US dollar. USDT is the one most used in Mexico for remittances and P2P. in Mexico, trades directly against pesos there; the USDT guide explains networks and uses.

Mercado Pago has widened its list. Its official page now names bitcoin, ether, Chainlink, Uniswap, Litecoin and Meli Dólar (MUSD), and its receiving guide also mentions Pax Dollar on Ethereum. There is no USDT, Solana or XRP. Meli Dólar stands out on cost: according to what the company published at launch, it is the only coin in the app with no buy or sell fee. Our Mercado Pago crypto guide covers it in detail.

Cash and OXXO: Mercado Pago's clear advantage

If you get paid in cash, Mercado Pago wins outright. You generate a reference in the app, pay at an OXXO, 7-Eleven or other participating store, and the balance shows up. You can buy bitcoin from there with no extra step.

Bitso's official fee page lists no cash deposits. Older blogs mention OXXO at about 2.6% plus VAT, but we could not confirm it as a current method. The practical route is to load cash into a wallet that has a CLABE, such as Spin by OXXO or Mercado Pago itself, and then send the pesos by SPEI to your Bitso CLABE. The full set of cash routes is in the guide to buying crypto with cash at OXXO.

ID checks: where foreigners get stuck

Both apps run KYCKnow Your Customer: the identity checks required by anti-money-laundering rules., and this is where expats and visitors feel the difference most.

Bitso asks for email, a phone number, an INE or passport, a selfie and, to move pesos, a CURP. Temporary and permanent residents get a CURP with their residency card, so they can register it. Tourists usually do not have one, which means they can send and receive crypto but cannot use SPEI. Bitso's own articles quote level limits that do not agree with each other, so check the limits screen in the app.

Mercado Pago says it confirms your identity before each crypto operation and recommends two-step verification or fingerprint approval. The reported daily buy limit is MXN 100,000. We could not find which foreign documents it accepts for its crypto section, so if you hold a foreign passport, try the verification before you count on it.

If neither works for you yet, buying with a US or other foreign card on a platform that bills in dollars is the direct path; the card buying guide explains foreign transaction fees and declines.

Getting coins out of the app: the real split

Bitso lets you withdraw crypto to any address you choose. Bitcoin over the Lightning NetworkA payment network built on Bitcoin that moves small amounts in seconds with tiny fees. has no withdrawal fee; on the main network it costs 0.00001543 BTC, about MXN 23 with bitcoin near MXN 1.5 million. USDT costs 0.01 USDT on Polygon and 3.4 USDT on Tron. The Bitso deposit and withdrawal guide has the steps.

Mercado Pago documents receiving: in Crypto you pick Receive, copy your address and accept bitcoin on Bitcoin; ether, Pax Dollar, Chainlink and Uniswap on Ethereum; and Litecoin on its own network. Receiving is free, has no daily limit and can take one to three hours to show.

Sending is another matter. The crypto page says you can "transfer and receive Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies" and that sends to another Mercado Pago account are instant and free. What we could not find is a help article covering sends to an outside address from Mexico, with networks, fees and limits. Until it is documented, we treat it as unconfirmed. If you want to hold bitcoin long term in a wallet where only you control the keys, Bitso does that today and Mercado Pago does not in a way we could verify. See the crypto wallet guide and our Ledger vs Trezor comparison for where to put it.

Pros and cons

Bitso

Mercado Pago

Who should use which

You want a first taste with MXN 200 to 500. Mercado Pago. The cost gap is a few pesos and you skip opening another account.

You are paid in cash. Mercado Pago to start. To pay less later, use it only as the cash door and send pesos by SPEI to Bitso.

You buy MXN 2,000 to 3,000 every payday. Bitso. With limit orders you pay 0.60% per buy against 1.5%. Over a year of 24 buys of MXN 2,500, that is about MXN 360 against MXN 900, on the buy side alone.

You are a resident saving bitcoin long term. Bitso, because withdrawals to your own wallet are documented and Lightning is free.

You want digital dollars. If keeping them inside the app is enough, Meli Dólar. If you need USDT or USDC to send elsewhere, Bitso lists both against pesos. For a wider comparison, read Bitso vs Binance.

You are a tourist without a CURP. Neither is ideal. A card purchase from a platform that bills in dollars, sent to your own wallet, avoids both problems.

Moving from one to the other

These are the routes we could back with official documentation.

Verdict

Mercado Pago is the lowest-friction way into bitcoin in Mexico: money you already have, cash at the corner store, purchases from one peso. You pay for it with about 3% per round trip and coins that, as far as we could document, do not leave for a wallet you control.

Bitso asks for more up front, CURP above all, but charges half as much, lists USDT and other coins against pesos, returns pesos to your bank at no charge and lets your bitcoin go wherever you want. If you will buy regularly or hold long term, it is the more sensible choice; the full Bitso review goes deeper, and the reviews index covers the other platforms that take pesos.