#188: Ipê City Pop-Up Comes to Floripa
Plus: World's first XRP ETF launches in Brazil; Itau expands crypto trading
Olá pessoal!
Greetings from Rio de Janeiro and welcome back to 🇧🇷Brazil Crypto Report for the week of April 21-25.
I’m in town for Web Summit this week and will be hosting a bunch of panels at the Transfero stand throughout the week, so please stop by and say hi if you’re around. I’ll also be moderating two sessions on the Fintech Stage on Monday so be sure to come check those out as well.
I had an incredible time in Florianpolis this weekend at the Ipê City Startup Societies Conference in Jurerê. The event was focused on exploring technology solutions related to the theme of human resilience — education, network state concepts, onchain governance, healthcare and longevity, digital economic zones, etc.
This was the first “non-crypto” conference I’ve been to in a while, and it honestly was a breath of fresh air. As crypto becomes more mainstream and institutionalized, it’s important to keep our eyes on what the next frontier of innovation will be, particularly new innovations that crypto and blockchain technologies unlock.
Big shout out to Jean Hansen, Nima and Paloma from Founder Haus, and everyone who helped make this special event come to reality.
🙌 Brazil Crypto Report now has a special Telegram group for readers! Feel free to jump in via this link and say hi.
🔎 What’s in BCR this week?
Hashdex launches world’s first XRP ETF on B3 exchange
Drex will have no control over Brazilians’ financial lives, BC’s Fabio Araujo assures
Crypto regulations now coming in second half of 2025, Central Bank says
Itau adds USDC, Solana, XRP trading to its superapp
Thanks for reading and have a great week!
- AWS
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🎙New Podcast!
This week’s episode is with Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation, who shares his long-term vision for the Cardano ecosystem and how it is expanding its footprint in Latin America. Over the last year, the foundation has inked educational partnerships with SERPRO, Brazil’s state-owned IT giant, and Petrobras, the state-owned oil company.
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Hashdex launches world’s first XRP ETF on B3 exchange
The world’s first XRP ETF began trading Friday, April 25 on the B3 — Brazil’s primary stock exchange.
The fund is owned by Hashdex and managed by Genial Investimentos. It will trade under the ticker XRPH11 and track the Nasdaq XRP Reference Price Index.
XRPH11 will invest at least 95% of its equity in XRP through spot purchases, futures contracts that replicate the profitability of the Nasdaq index and other means.
Samir Kerbage, Hashdex’s chief investment officer, said in a statement:
“XRP11 is part of Hashdex’s line of mono-asset funds, such as the ETFs BITH11, ETHE11 and SOLH11. The focus of these ETFs is sophisticated investors, such as institutional investors who want to build crypto portfolios on B3.”
Valor CoinTelegraph Brasil Portal do Bitcoin Exame BeinCrypto
Araujo: Drex will have no control over Brazilians’ financial lives
Amid a negative vibe shift towards CBDCs prompted by Donald Trump and conservatives in the US, Fabio Araujo, Drex coordinator at Brazil’s Central Bank, spoke to Valor in an attempt to clarify some “misconceptions” about the Drex project.
In addition to other headwinds, the project has faced blowback from figures such as Eduardo Bolsonaro who claim that Drex will be used as a tool for financial surveillance and increased control over individuals.
Araujo sought to assure that the BC will have no greater control over everyday citizens with Drex and that user privacy is one of the project’s top priorities.
Some other “myths” that he sought to debunk include:
The BC will not be able to monitor individual’s transactions in real time, as the records that circulate through the Drex DLT platform are not identifiable:
“Only the information necessary to guarantee the integrity of the transaction passes through the Drex network: value, asset being traded, whether it is a payment, transfer or execution of guarantee, for example, and the addresses of the participants' wallets, which are maintained by the financial institutions.”
Trump’s vision of banning CBDCs in favor of private stablecoins is in line with what the Brazil’s Central Bank sees:
“Our CBDC is not for the end user, they will only use the retail Drex issued by private entities, which is analogous to the private stablecoins that already exist.
“If you think about the most famous stablecoins, such as Circle’s USDC, they take money in traditional dollars and place it in bank deposits so that they can issue dollar tokens representing this hoarded value. In the Brazilian market, we already have a public infrastructure to do this: payment institutions, which take your deposit and place it in the custody of the Central Bank, which is the safest way to back it up.”
Drex will not have the ability to restrict transfer and payment contracts based on geolocation
Drex will have the ability to block certain accounts from within, so as to comply with court orders (as is the case today in the traditional banking system)
The Central Bank requires visibility into the Drex network not to exert control over people, but rather to monitor risk
Central Bank: Crypto regulations coming in 2H 2025
Long-expected crypto regulations from Brazil’s Central Bank are now expected to be released in the second half of the year, according to Gilneu Vivan, director of regulation at the bank.
The bank recently concluded three public consultations regarding its proposed regulatory framework for the crypto market.
These impact companies looking to function as Virtual Asset Service Providers (a fancy word for crypto exchagne or brokerage), as well as companies that offer related virtual asset services but not brokerage directly. There is also a proposal for regulating stablecoins as foreign exchange.
Stay tuned on this front as I will be releasing a podcast interview with Tatiana Guazzelli of Pinheiro Neto and Marcos Rocha of Veirano Advogados discussing this subject later this week.
Valor CoinTelegraph Brasil Portal do Bitcoin Livecoins
Itau announces USDC, Solana, XRP trading
Itau, the largest private bank in Latin America, announced an expansion of its crypto trading platform. It will now offer USDC, SOL and XRP trading to users of its superapp.
The minimum investment is R$10.00, with a 2.5% fee at purchase. Guto Antunes, head of digital assets at the bank, said in a statement:
"We are constantly monitoring our clients' investment habits and have identified a growing demand for these specific cryptocurrencies. Our goal is to provide an investment experience in digital assets that is as safe and transparent as investing in other traditional financial products. The future of the crypto journey at Itaú will be scaled according to the needs and interests of our clients.”
CoinTelegraph Brasil Livecoins Portal do Bitcoin BlockNews BeinCrypto
Orange BTC to buy US$210 million of bitcoin in bid to become Brazil’s MicroStrategy
Orange BTC announced its intent to become the first public company in Latin America exclusively dedicated to accumulating bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset.
Itau BBA will act as an advisor to the project, though the bitcoin accumulation strategy, market positioning and expansion will be handled by Orange BTC.
It plans to build a robust BTC treasury, seek institutional recognition and prepare for an IPO in Brazil. To acquire bitcoin, it will raise funds via debt issuance, share sales and other capital instruments. It offers an alternative to the bitcoin ETF model that exposes direct exposure to bitcoin through company shares.
The project is led by Guilherme Gomes as CEO and Guilherme Ferreira as CFO. It also includes figures such as Fernando Ulrich and Eric Weiss.
Orange BTC’s business plan forecasts an estimated return of 45% in BTC during the first year if accumulation and appreciation targets are met.
CoinTelegraph Brasil Portal do Bitcoin Livecoins BeinCrypto
🗞Brazil Crypto News Rundown
📈 Markets
XP announced its return to the crypto market with a new bitcoin-focused investment fund. Aimed at general investors, the fund has a minimum investment of R$100 and an annual management fee of 0.40%. The move is XP’s third attempt at entering the crypto market; it launched its first product XDEX in 2018 but shut it down in 2020, and launched XTAGE in 2022 before shutting it down a year later. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (CriptoFacil) (BeinCrypto) (BlockNews)
Santander and Nuclea have developed an asset tokenization solution called N-Cotas that aims to increase liquidity and efficiency of consortium quota trading. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (Valor)
Traditional and digital banks like Itau, Bradesco, Banco do Brasil and Nubank are expected to steal a large part of the cryptocurrency market currently occupied by crypto exchanges and become major custodians of cryptocurrencies, argued Jean-Michel Guillot of DINAMO Networks. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
📲 Adoption
Central Bank president Gabriel Galipolo told the Senate Economic Affairs Committee that Drex remains among the bank’s priority projects, though he backed away from using language calling it a CBDC. He said it:
"is not exactly a central bank digital currency [CBDC] as it is thought of in Europe, for example. It is an infrastructure that allows, through smart contracts and tokenization, to expand the idea of collateralization". (Livecoins) (Exame)
Tether is hiring an expansion manager focused on broadening the stablecoin’s presence in the Brazilian market. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
The National Education and Research Network (RNP) and the Telecommunications Research and Development Center (CPQD) launched the National Blockchain Observatory with the mission of mapping disseminating and fostering development of the technology in the country. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (Livecoins) (BeinCrypto) (CriptoFacil)
Z.ro Bank has appointed Rafael Lavezzo as CEO of Z.ro International, which is responsible for the platform’s expansion throughout latam. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Amid the slowdown and uncertainty surrounding the Drex project, Brazilian banks are investing more share of their innovation budgets in artificial intelligence, according to a Febraban survey. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Chinese banks and fintechs are expressing interest in Brazil’s Pix instant payment system. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Heavy-metal-maestro turned blockchain-bro Mauricio Magaldi was profiled by BeinCrypto.
🏛 Policy, Regulation and Enforcement
Crypto exchange CryptoMKT is suing Google in regards to scammers using paid Google ads to redirect users to fake websites mimicking the CryptoMKT platform. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
The X platform denied involvement in enabling a bitcoin payments to Allan dos Santos, Paulo Figueiredo and other conservative accounts ordered blocked by Brazil’s Supreme Court. (Portal do Bitcoin) (Livecoins)
Mercado Bitcoin is offering new tools to help investors simplify the declaration of crypto assets on their income tax returns. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Civil Police of Para arrested a man suspected of enacting a “love scam” on a woman and laundering R$500,000 in stolen funds via cryptocurrency. (Portal do Bitcoin) (Livecoins)
A police chief from the state of Alagoas testified that online betting houses are fraudulently recruiting users to their platforms by setting influencers up with fake accounts and allowing them to pretend that they’ve won money on the platform.
“In order to play, the gambler needs to download an app. In that app, the famous demo account was provided to influencers. They received the real account, where they would post the link for people to click and bet, but they also received an account, another link where they could enter, simulate, record the screen showing how they made the big win. It was all a scam.” (CoinTelegraph Brasil)