Less than one year after Rei's death, and precisely on the days when his Santos was relegated for the first time of history in the Brazilian Serie B, thePele's ex-wife Assyria Seixas Lemos and two of his children, Twins Joshua e Celeste's, have projected the football legend further into the future.
In fact, the heirs have announced that they are ready to launch a digital bank di cryptocurrencyIt is called JanBank, will deal with the trading of virtual currencies and will also issue a prepaid card on the Mastercard circuit, to carry out everyday transactions through Bitcoin and similar. The reverend is involved in the project Charlton Soares, old friend of Pelè and pastor of the Baptist church, and two entrepreneurs from the Brazilian fintech world, Vitor Hugo Zitnick e Regis Renzi.
Possible business partners
Following the news, there was no shortage of controversy. Meanwhile, the denials: one of the partners announced is the Californian company BitGo, which according to the first announcements would have had the delicate task of storing the Pelè family's cryptocurrencies in its high-security hardware, but which, according to what was reported by the financial newspaper Valor Economico, has denied, for now, having signed an agreement with JanBank. Fintech however has admitted to having been involved and to be in negotiations to be part of the project, but at the moment there is nothing official and certain.
Another company was keen to deny its involvement, even if the Brazilian press did not reveal its name: it is a company which would enable the payment in Bitcoin also via Pix a innovative formula of instant electronic payment, with zero commission costs, introduced in the South American country in 2020 and which in a short time has overtaken credit cards as the most used transaction method in everyday life.
The figure of Pele
The other controversy is the type of business to which it would be linked in some way figure of Pele. Hero of Brazilian popular culture, King however it has been several times disputed for its lack commitment to fighting poverty e to racism in his country. He was also Minister of Sport in the 90s and ended up in various scandals due to conflict of interest and, for example, for having accepted money for a Unicef campaign in favor of children in the favelas. It is therefore easy to understand that an activity like this, which moves thousands of billions around the world (Bitcoin is still experiencing its phase of euphoria: it is traded at 43.500 dollars), would still risk "dirty” the image of the Pelé family: for this reason, the second wife (marriage lasted from 1994 to 2008) and the two children she had with the champion, have already made it known that the 10% of JanBank's profits it will come donated to social activities.
Banca Pelè: cryptocurrencies treated
Initially, the “Pelè bank” will offer the following cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dash (DASH), Polygon (MATIC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Tether (USDT) and Cardano (ADA). In Brazil, which is a very fintech-oriented country, this is not the first experience of credit institutions dealing with digital currencies: Itau, one of the largest banks in South America, already accepts trades in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Even in Europe there ECB has cleared Bitcoin through customs as a store of value, while in the United States the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), the federal body that supervises the stock exchange, is expected to admit in the coming months Cryptocurrency-based ETFs.