#200: Nubank re-launches its Nucoin loyalty token
Plus: Krugman praises Pix; BitGo launches in Brazil
Olá pessoal!
Welcome back to Brazil Crypto Report for the week of July 21-25, 2025.
I hope everyone is doing well. Personally I’m back to full speed following my winter (or is it summer?) holiday.
I’m excited to see everyone next week at Blockchain Rio, which is happening August 5-7 at ExpoMag in Rio de Janeiro. BCR is excited to be an ecosystem partner for this year’s event — which figures to be its largest ever. If you need tickets, be sure to jump into the Brazil Crypto Report Telegram group where there a bunch of promotions and offers floating around.
The conference has some big international names confirmed as speakers:
Chainlink founder Sergey Nazarov
Bybit COO Mazurka Zeng
Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov
Bitpanda CEO Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad
Conduit CEO Kirill Gertman
Feel free to shoot me a note if you’ll be around and interested in connecting on the ground.
📰 Top Stories this Week
Nobel Economist Paul Krugman praises Pix
B3 to expand trading hours for crypto futures
Nubank re-launches its NuCoin loyalty program
Tether freezes US$32 million in USDT linked to Central Bank hack
Carbon credit project Moss linked to controversial “Carbon King” land-grabber
BitGo officially launches operations in Brazil
Thanks for reading and have a great week!
- AWS
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🎙️New Podcasts!
No new podcast this week, but be sure to have a listen to the previous week’s interview with former Brazilian Central Bank official Tony Volpon, who discusses the macro and political situation in Brazil, his journey down the bitcoin rabbit hole and his new project building a tokenized real estate marketplace in Brazil.
🙌 You can listen to BCR on your favorite podcast platform YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts
B3 to expand trading hours for crypto futures
Brazil’s B3 stock exchange is planning to extend trading hours for bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana futures contracts.
The new trading hours will be 8:00am to 8:00pm, beginning in November, with the end goal of reaching 24 hour availability. Current trading hours are 9:30 to 6:30pm Brazil time.
Marcos Skystimas, B3’s director of listed products, also said that the exchange plans to increase its crypto asset portfolio to expand investors’ diversification options. He told Valor:
"There comes a time when there's no opportunity in the index, so you go to the dollar. If there isn't in the dollar, you go to bitcoin, solana, and ether.”
BitGo officially launches in Brazil
The American custody giant has officially opened a branch in Brazil, where it aims to compete with Fireblocks and others in the country offering services to Brazilian financial institutions.
The company’s presence in Brazil is far from new, however. Luis Ayala, director for Latam, explained that BitGo secured its first Brazilian client in 2017. The rationale for officially forming an entity, he noted, is to establish a more formal local presence.
"Cryptocurrency regulations are still unclear in Brazil, and we wanted to be a more local player, accepting payments in reais and receiving invoices directly in the country.”
BitGo’s clients in the country currently include fintechs, neobanks, crypto brokerages and exchange traded funds.
Nubank re-launches NuCoin loyalty program
Nubank has relaunched its popular Nucoin cryptocurrency loyalty token.
The first version of the project was discontinued last year. Customers would receive Nucoins as a form of cashback for activity on the Nubank platform and then be able to redeem the Polygon-based tokens for benefits.
Users could also purchase Nucoins via the app’s crypto trading interface. This resulted in problems as customers were buying the tokens for speculative purposes.
NuCoin 2.0 promises that tokens will only be awarded for using Nubank issued credit and debit cards.
"Gradually, other actions will be incorporated into the program, such as paying bills on time, registering a Pix key, and sharing data with Nubank via Open Finance, expanding the forms of engagement.”
Among the rewards and benefits that Nucoins unlock include event tickets and discounts at popular retailers like Shoppee, Magalu and Amazon. The Nubank app will also periodically special quests and contests that allow users to boost their Nucoin earnings.
The new Nucoins will still be registered on blockchain just as the previous ones were, Valor reports, but they will not be tradable in the Nubank app.
Tether freezes US$32 million in USDT linked to Central Bank hack
The USDT stablecoin issuer said that it had frozen the funds in collaboration with the Sao Paulo Public Prosecutor’s Office and Federal Police.
The USDT in question is linked to the hack of C&M Software earlier this month that impacted the Central Bank’s reserve accounts.
In a statement, Tether said that it collaborates with more than 275 law enforcement agencies across 59 jurisdictions globally to combat illicit activity. CEO Paulo Ardoino said in a statement:
“We take our responsibility to combat financial crime seriously and will continue to work closely with global law enforcement agencies, including our most recent cooperation with Brazilian authorities, to prevent criminals from exploiting stablecoin technology.”
In related news, Federal Police seized R$700,000 from a man in Boa Vista in the Amazon state of Roraima suspected of being involved in the Central Bank hack.
The man, who works as both a congressional aide and a real estate broker, was apprehended after withdrawing the money from a local bank branch. He previously received R$2.4 million in his savings account from two companies linked to the hack, triggering suspicious transaction alerts.
Federal Police said in a statement:
"The holder of the cash was arrested for money laundering due to the lack of plausible justification for possessing the large sums of cash. The investigation is ongoing.”
In still other related news, the Central Bank reported a data leak of the Pix keys of more than 11 million individuals
Carbon credit project Moss linked to controversial “Carbon King”
Tokenized carbon credit project Moss Earth partnered with Ricardo Stoppe, Jr., known as the “Carbon King”, who was arrested in a greenwashing operation last year by Federal Police.
Stoppe became one of the largest carbon credit sellers in Brazil, with large companies and banks among his clients. According to Federal Police, he acquired more than 500,000 hectares of land in the Amazon by engaging in document and registry fraud. Corrupt notary offices and false documents certified by courts ultimately allowed the scheme to continue.
Moss is the company behind the MC02 cryptocurrency, which currently trades at $0.12 after briefly reaching highs north of US$17 in 2021. The project was once quite popular and even sponsored the Flamengo football club but has since fallen off.
In a statement, the company said it continues to operate but underwent a restructuring in 2024 and no longer operates in the carbon credit tokenization business.
Nobel Economist Krugman praises Pix
Controversial economist Paul Krugman highlighted Brazil’s Pix instant payment system in his Substack newsletter, asking the question ‘Has Brazil Invested the Future of Money”?
Most of the newsletter is a screed against his political opponents in the US, but he does highlight that Pix functions almost as a public version of Zelle in the US and highlights its explosive adoption since launching in 2020.
“I can't help but notice that Pix is, in fact, achieving what cryptocurrency enthusiasts falsely claimed could be achieved through blockchain: low transaction costs and financial inclusion. Compare the 93% of Brazilians who use Pix with the 2%—that's right, only 2%—of Americans who used cryptocurrencies to buy something or make a payment in 2024.”
He poses the question of whether the US would ever launch something like Pix, to which he responds in the negative arguing that US conservatives would never endorse a government operated payment system and that the entrenched financial system is simply too powerful to allow a public sector competitor to enter the market. (I agree with his responses here)
The piece is a nice endorsement of Pix’s success from a well-known figure in economics and policy circles. However, this is also the guy who claimed that the internet’s impact on the economy would be no greater than that of the fax machine and argued repeatedly that bitcoin is a scam. Perhaps his endorsement of Pix isn’t something to be celebrating
🗞Brazil Crypto News Rundown
📈 Markets
More than 50 crypto funds are currently available on the Brazilian market as traditional financial institutions continue to enter the space, according to a survey by Quantum Finance and the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission. The largest in terms of shareholders include Hashdex, Itau, Banco do Brasil, and BTG Pactual. Henry Oyama, director of investment strategies at Hashdex, told Valor that the entrance of large banks into the market is a welcomed development:
"It's an important validation of the crypto market. When historically more conservative institutions begin offering products linked to this universe, it reinforces the legitimacy of the asset class and shows that it's here to stay.” (Valor)
VERT, a securitization and fund management company, launched a platform for managing private credit operations on Ripple’s XRP Ledger. Gabriel Braga, director of digital assets at VERT, said in a statement:
“We are enabling operation events to be recorded in the most granular way possible, ensuring traceability and transparency with event records increasingly closer to the moment they occur, approaching real time.”
Crypto exchange Kucoin resumed operations in Brazil by activating Pix and BRL deposits. It had previously suspended operations but cited recent developments in its decision to re-open. CEO BC Wong said in a statement:
"Latin America is a vital market for KuCoin, and our commitment remains unwavering. We are dedicated to providing Brazilian traders with an exceptional trading experience. As the first major exchange to offer Brazilian real transfers via PIX following the Central Bank of Brazil's 2022 policy updates, our current resumption of transactions with Brazilian real balances further highlights our leadership in innovation and regulatory alignment.” (Livecoins)
📲 Adoption
Anbima announced the creation of a test network for tokenizing financial instruments in partnership with Fenasbac. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Liqi Securitizadora announced that it had surpassed R$200 million in tokenization of receivables and financial debentures. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Retailer Riachuelo is expanding its partnership with Blockforce to use its blockchain supply chain traceability solution for a new jeans collection. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
The Itaipu Dam, shared by Brazil and Paraguay, is considering building two new turbines to compensate for increased usage on the Paraguay side from bitcoin mining and AI data center operations. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Brazilians crypto users want to pay with stablecoins, according a recent survey by payments app Oobit. (The Defiant)
🏛 Policy, Regulation and Enforcement
A Brazilian man suspected of stealing R$12 million from a crypto exchange by exploiting a security flaw was arrested by Federal Police. (Valor)
Otto Lobo is the new acting president of the CVM, Brazil’s securities regulator, until a new president is nominated by the executive branch and approved by the Senate. (BeinCrypto)
“Pharaoh of Bitcoins” Glaidson Acacio dos Santos’ attorneys attempted to have him transfered from Catanduvas Federal Penitentiary in Parana to Bangu 1 in Rio de Janeiro. The transfer request, however, was denied by a Rio court. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Pastor Davi Nicoletti of Recomecar Church in Sao Paulo was identified as the leader of a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that received over R$4 million in one year. (Portal do Bitcoin)