#181: Meliuz puts 10% of its cash reserves into bitcoin
Plus: Ronaldinho memecoin flops; market pushes back against proposed stablecoin self-custody ban
💡 If you haven't already be sure to check out Merge Buenos Aires, which takes place March 24-26 in the Argentine capital. The conference is an exciting opportunity to connect Europe and Latin America through Web3 and will provide a great pulse check on crypto adoption in the region. I'll be attending and I hope to see some of you there as well
Olá pessoal!
Welcome back to 🇧🇷Brazil Crypto Report for the week of March 3-7, 2025.
I hope everyone had a fun Carnaval. I visited Goiania for the first time just to do something different. My expectations weren’t super high but I was quite impressed by the city. It had a similar vibe to some of the Tier 2 US cities like Las Vegas or Denver that have been growing vast since the pandemic.
Lots of big news despite the short week so let’s dive in!
🔎 What’s in this week’s BCR?
Cashback e-commerce platorm Meliuz buys US$4.1 million in bitcoin for its corporate treasury
Ronaldinho memecoin launches and quickly flops
Cardano Foundation partners with Serpro to provide blockchain education for public sector
CVM says Brazilians invest 3.5x more into online betting sites than crypto
Brazil’s VASPs push back on proposed Central Bank regulations
Thanks for reading and have a great week!
- AWS
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The Central Bank released a much-anticipated report detailing its findings and conclusions from the first phase of the Drex pilot. It concluded that the project needs to undergo some serious reforms to become a viable part of Brazilian financial infrastructure.
The report was met with mixed reaction from the market, with some saying Drex has too many problems and not enough support to live up to its potential. Others argue that expectations need to be managed properly. This was, after all, a pilot project, and pilot projects by definition aren’t going to be shovel-ready in the immediate future.
For this episode I was joined by Marcos Viriato of Parfin/Rayls, Leandro Pereira of Nuclea and Ricardo Paixão of CRIA and the Brazilian Congress to discuss the findings from the report. Definitely worth a watch/listen if you’re looking for a balanced take on the state of the project and next steps.
🎧 You can find Brazil Crypto Report content wherever you listen to podcasts: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon | Anchor | YouTube
Meliuz puts 10% of its cash reserves into bitcoin
Cashback fintech and e-commerce firm Meliuz became Brazil’s first publicly-traded company to use cash reserves in its treasury to buy bitcoin as a means to preserve long-term value.
The company used 10% of its reserves to purchase 45.7 bitcoins worth US$4.1 million. Shares rose 16.4% in trading after the announcement was made. Israel Salmen, founder and chairman, said:
“We have been studying a way to improve our cash flow for a long time. As a company that operates under the real profit regime, we pay high taxes on the CDI income….In addition, official inflation rates do not reflect the real loss of purchasing power, so we decided to allocate 10% of our cash to bitcoin.”
The company had previously allocated its investments into traditional fixed income assets.
Salmen insisted that short term price volatility will not impact the company’s decision moving ahead:
“We have no target or time frame to hold it; we are focused on being long-term investors.
"What is riskier: keeping reserves in cash subject to devaluation due to public policies of strong monetary expansionism or investing in a truly scarce asset, which has appreciated by around 77% per year in dollars over the last 10 years?”
Salmen also explained that the objective is not to become the Brazilian version of Strategy (formerly known as MicroStrategy), but rather to make its resources more profitable.
The purchases were made through crypto infrastructure and tokenization provider Liqi.
The company also announced that it has created a “Strategic Bitcoin Committee” that will analyze how it can expand bitcoin purchasing operations.
XP Investimentos criticized the move, saying that the strategy “may raise concerns among investors regarding the company's cash management.”
Valor Portal do Bitcoin CoinTelegraph Brasil Exame InfoMoney BlockNews
Ronaldinho memecoin launches, flops
Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho Gaucho announced his own “official” cryptocurrency, $STAR10, on BNB chain. As expected, the project was quickly ensnared in controversy.
He wrote in an X post promoting the token:
“This isn’t just a token — it’s a legacy in the making.
“Owning this token grants you exclusive experiences, real-world benefits, signed collectibles, and even my own AI Agent — built for those who want to be part of history.”
5% of fees generated from the token will ostensibly be donated to charitable causes as determined by the token’s community.
But that’s where things begin to get ugly. Criticisms erupted over the project’s tokenomics, namely that 35% of the supply has been allocated to insiders and 20% to Ronaldinho himself. The launch also appears to have been dominated by “snipers” that use bots to buy up large amounts of the token before regular traders.
It was called out on X by security firm GoPlus over a glitch that would allow the founders to burn any investor’s tokens whenever desired. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao re-posted the tweet.
The team responded saying that the flaw had been fixed, prompting the coin to surge in value by 150% and reach the top position on Dexscreener.
The high was short-lived, however. After 3 days on the market, however, the coin had plummeted 87% from its high of US$0.38 to just US$0.05. As of press time the token trades at US$0.01.
Ronaldinho has been involved in numerous other crypto ventures in recent years. He was called to testify before a special congressional committee in Brazil in 2023 about a crypto pyramid scheme that was using his name and likeness, though he denied any relationship with the project.
In 2019, he tried launching the failed Ronaldinho Soccer Coin and has links to several other projects.
There are also reports that while signing a US$10 million contract to promote $STAR10, Ronaldinho breached an existing US$6 million contract to promote another coin.
BeinCrypto Valor Portal do Bitcoin CoinTelegraph Brasil CriptoFacil InfoMoney
CVM: Brazilians invest 3.5x more in bets than in crypto
Brazilian consumers are investing more in online betting websites than in crypto by a rather large margin, per a new study by the CVM, Brazil’s securities regulator, in conjunction with FGV-EBAPE.
14% of respondents said that they bet on online gambling sites, whereas just 4% said they’ve invested in crypto. 26% of investors said they allocate to savings accounts.
The report found that TV and digital advertisements by betting sites increased the tendency to invest in fraudulent schemes.
Some other stats from the study:
Brazilians spend R$21 billion (US$3.6 billion) per month on online betting
22 million Brazilians bet on these sites, compared to 8 million who invest in bank deposit certificates (CDBs) and 4 million who invest in the stock market
Cardano Foundation partners with Serpro to provide blockchain education
Serpro, the largest public IT company in the world, is partnering with Cardano Foundation to train the company’s employees about blockchain.
Serpro says the objective is to expand blockchain knowledge and adoption in the public sector, which could lead to greater efficiency and less corruption and fraud.
“As a government brand, Serpro has been significantly expanding its operations in digital transformation, and blockchain is a strategic tool to ensure the integrity and decentralization of data, mitigating the possibility of fraud and increasing the efficiency of the State.”
CoinTelegraph Brasil CriptoFacil Livecoins
Brazil’s VASPs push back on proposed Central Bank regulations
The comment window for two public consultations put forth by Brazil’s Central bank on VASP regulation and stablecoins/FX, respectively, closed at the end of March.
In their comments, crypto brokerages in the market pushed back strongly against the bank’s proposal to ban stablecoin transfers from regulated VASPs to self-custodied wallets.
Mercado Bitcoin said in its response that the concept goes against the whole raison d’etre of the crypto market:
“The unrestricted prohibition of self-custody goes against fundamental principles of the virtual assets market, such as decentralization and the autonomy of users over their own assets, essential characteristics that distinguish this sector from traditional financial infrastructures. Preventing the use of self-custodial wallets would be equivalent to going against the structural logic of the cryptoasset ecosystem.”
In its submission, Binance argued that self-custody of private property is a right enshrined in the constitution:
“It is important to emphasize that self-custody is a right intrinsic to financial freedom and private property in the digital environment. The Federal Constitution of 1988 guarantees, in its Article 5, XXII, the right to property as a permanent clause. This principle is not limited to physical goods, but extends to digital, virtual and intangible assets in general. Self-custody is the maximum expression of this right”
Ripple contended that the ban could inadvertently block or restrict legitimate use cases.
Another part of the FX consultation that was questioned heavily by the market is a proposal to limit the size of international transfers or payments via VASPs to US$100,000.
ABCripto, trade group that represents the industry, argued that “establishing limits has the potential to leave Brazil on the sidelines of the global virtual asset market.”
Some called for the provision to be excluded altogether, while others like Ripple and Coinbase said it should be increased to US$500,000
Some exchanges like MB also proposed changes to asset segregation rules proposed by the bank for crypto brokerages.
🗞Brazil Crypto News Rundown
📈 Markets
Credit cooperative Sicoob Imob and tokenization company netspaces are launching a credit line for tokenized properties. The goal is to allow cooperative members to use a tokenized property as collateral when applying for loans. netspaces registers the token with a local notary’s office, giving it necessary legal legitimacy. CEO Andreas Blazoudakis told Valor:
“We have managed to coexist in both worlds without the immediate need for new regulations. Soon, we will need additional regulations and we will adapt.” (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (BlockNews)
GCB Group, which works with tokenized securities and credit on its PeerBR platform, moved R$413.9 million in deals in 2024 and expects that figure to hit R$1 billion in 2025. (Valor)
200 million Brazilians are now “banked” — meaning they have some type of formal relationship with the national financial system, whether that be checking accounts, prepaid accounts, investments or other assets. (Valor)
📲 Adoption
Porto Alegre is becoming a hub for semi-conductor chip development in Brazil. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
BlockNews talked to several market participants about the Central Bank’s decision to cancel participation of new companies and use cases in the Drex pilot.
Eduardo Bolsonaro again criticized the Drex project, arguing that it resembles the digital currency model being deployed in China. He also stated that the Brazilian government has signed cooperation agreements with the country regarding digital finance information exchange. (Livecoins)
Correios, Brazil’s postal service, has launched a pre-selection process for companies and experts in blockchain and AI interested in creating solutions for use inside the public company. (Portal do Bitcoin) (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
🏛 Policy, Regulation and Enforcement
Federal Police arrested Rodrigo Rodriguez Gomes — known as “Piloto”, who is suspected of participating in the GAS Consultoria pyramid operated by Glaidson Acacio dos Santos, aka Pharaoh of Bitcoins. After fleeing Brazil in 2021 with a false passport, Gomes was arrested in Florida but is expected to be extradited to Brazil. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (Portal do Bitcoin) (InfoMoney) (Livecoins)
Brazil’s Central Bank ordered the blocking of Pix keys belonging to individuals and companies who have “irregular” status. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)