🇧🇷BCR# 43: B3 Exchange to Launch Bitcoin Futures This Year
Plus, Brazil celebrates Bitcoin Pizza Day; yet another bitcoin ETF; Mercado Bitcoin dumps Corinthians FC sponsorship, plots new DAO-governed football team
Hello friends,
Welcome to a double issue of 🇧🇷Brazil Crypto Report for May 16-27. I made an effort to get an edition out last week while I was at World Economic Forum in Davos but was just super strapped for time as it was a wild week.
It was a pleasure meeting some readers on the ground at WEF; thanks to everyone who stopped by the Filecoin Foundation venue. We plan to renew and do this all again in January so excited to be going back in a few months’ time. Below is a pic of the old English church that we rented out for the week and turned into a venue for producing content with CNBC and hosting events. This was right across the street from the main WEF security checkpoint so definitely left an impression.
I bumped into loyal 🇧🇷BCR reader Andre Portilho who heads the digital assets practice at BTG Pactual. Here’s a shot of him representing Brazil cryptoland on a panel at the Global Blockchain Business Council lounge in Hotel Europe 👇
🍺 Also, our friends at Zero Hash are in town for the week and hosting a June 2nd crypto happy hour in Cidade Jardim in São Paulo, so if you’re in the area you should definitely stop by. Alternatively, you can schedule a meeting with them here if you’d like to learn more about their white-label crypto infrastructure products.
🚀Next up is Consensus in Austin, TX. I’ll be around June 6-12 so please reach out if you’ll be around and would like to connect. Easiest way to find me is Telegram @AaronStanley or aaron@brazilcrypto.report. If you’re around on June 8 make sure you check out FIL Austin, which is being hosted by Filecoin Foundation. It’s free to register here. We may be hitting waitlist capacity soon; if so, just ping me and I’ll make sure you get in.
Exciting times! Look forward to connecting with you all in the coming months and building in this bear market.
-AWS
🎙 Be sure to check out the most recent BCR podcasts with Conor Brady, founder of Ethereum Brasil, about his upcoming Ethereum São Paulo event (which is now happening Sept 27-29) and Ze Paulo, president of Crypto Jr. in Brazil, about building a crypto talent pipeline in the country. You can listen to the episodes in your browser and on Spotify.
🙏 Thanks to our partners at HBAR Foundation for supporting 🇧🇷 Brazil Crypto Report! If you're a Latam entrepreneur or developer with an up-and-coming project or idea and need some support, take a look at the HBAR grant program. They're seeding projects focused on DeFi, fintech, NFTs, sustainability and so much more. They also offer a plethora of other resources to help builders bootstrap. Do yourself a favor and check them out! 👊
💣 Trending Cryptos in Brazil
Here’s a weekly snapshot of trending cryptocurrencies in Brazil as of May 26, 2022, per data provider CoinGecko. Bomber Coin has reclaimed its top spot after being briefly overtaken by Sweatcoin two weeks ago.
🗞Brazil Crypto News Rundown
📈 Markets
The B3 exchange will launch its first bitcoin futures trading product in the next six months, according to remarks made by chief financial officer André Milanez during a quarterly earnings call. “We plan to launch bitcoin futures in the next three to six months,” he said. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (InfoMoney) (CoinDesk)
The B3’s investment fund announced a R$600m (US$127m) investment fund aimed at entrepreneurs and startups in tokenization, DeFi and other areas. The L4 Venture Builder, as it’s known, will be led by Pedro Meduna. The fund will be able to make greenfield investments, “acqui-hires” or acquire control and minority stakes of companies already in operation. Gilson Finkelsztain, CEO of B3, commented:
“L4 Venture Builder will work as an independent structure, with a flexible format to develop its business, and may even operate in areas in which B3 already works. The idea is that the fund invests in Venture Building over the next 5 years and the first investment in startups to take place this year.” (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Crypto ETFs trading on the B3 registered losses of between 10% and 68% over the previous year, per data published by the exchange. For example, HASH11 has accumulated losses of 51.13% since listing, while QDFI11, which tracks the Bloomberg Galaxy DeFi Index, is down 68.11%. The drop is mainly attributed to global macro factors that have rocked asset markets around the world and especially cryptocurrencies. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Brazil is getting yet another crypto ETF with 100% exposure to bitcoin. ETC Group, one of Europe’s largest crypto firms, is listing its digital currency index fund on the B3 under the ticker BTCE11. (InfoMoney)
NovaDax listed eight new cryptocurrencies, bringing the total number of assets on its platform to 134. The new tokens include BinaryX (BNX), APENFT (NFT), JasmyCoin (JASMY), COTI, GNO (Gnosis), 1INCH, SXP, IOTX. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Nubank’s forthcoming digital currency arm will be called Nubank Cripto, or just NuCripto, according to trademark registrations filed with the National Institute of Industrial Property. (Livecoins)
Mercado Bitcoin co-founder Rodrigo Batista will launch his new crypto exchange Digitra.com in June, with the goal of competing with the likes of Binance and FTX. His goal is to reach one million customers within a year. Among the resources at his disposal is a R$25m (US$5m) investment from Profitus Participações, a firm owned by Itaú hier and shareholder Ricardo Vilella Marino. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (Livecoins)
Brazilian exchange Nox Bitcoin will spend R$620,000 (US$131,000) to reimburse customers who lost money in the UST meltdown. The brokerage had allowed users to stake Terra to earn passive income. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Mercado Bitcoin enabled access to the USDC stablecoin on the Stellar network, which offers cheaper and faster transactions vis-a-vis Ethereum. It also listed eight new cryptos for trading - including Oasis, Stacks (STX), Mina Protocol (MINA) and COTI. The exchange is also partnering with Stellar Development Fund to develop one of the nine projects selected for the Banco Central’s LIFT Digital Real Challenge. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Brazilian exchange BitPreco will support the controversial Luna 2.0 plan and distribute the airdrop to its customers who hold LUNA. Others, including Mercado Bitcoin, decided to unlist the coin altogether and automatically settle and credit accounts of their users. (CoinTimes)
📱Adoption
Bitcoin Pizza Day, aka May 22, was celebrated across Brazil with a number of events commemorating the ever bitcoin transaction in 2010 - in which Laszlo Haneycz paid 10,000 bitcoins for two Papa John’s pizzas to be delivered to his house. A group of true believers in Porto Alegre are asking the city to officially recognize the day. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (Portal do Bitcoin)
48 percent of Brazilians do not invest in digital currencies because they do not “know enough about the asset”, according to a survey carried out by Toluna. Just 16% of respondents said they were completely familiar with the concept of cryptocurrencies. (Valor Investe)
Mercado Bitcoin is dropping its sponsorship with Corinthians FC and is instead launching a new team that will be managed via a DAO with decisions being made by governance token holders. Each exchange customer will receive one token free of charge. The launch will be made during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar in November. MB was originally under contract to sponsor Corinthians until December of this year. (Valor Investe) (Portal do Bitcoin)
CoinTelegraph Brasil published a good article assessing the feasibility of bitcoin mining in Brazil in light of slashed taxes on the mining equipment imports. TLDR is there’s a lot of currently wasted electricity and hence opportunity, but Brazil is still too slow and bureaucratic to capitalize on the opportunity vis-a-vis neighboring countries like Paraguay.
Bitso is laying off 80 employees across the company, including at least one in Brazil, Portal do Bitcoin reports. (CoinDesk)
Crypto exchange and wallet platform Blockchain.com is looking for a General Manager to oversee its Brazil expansion. (Livecoins)
The Brazil Blockchain Network will officially launch Monday, May 30. The project is a joint collaboration between the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) and BNDES. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Mercado Bitcoin is partnering with Traders Club to bring crypto trading to more than 640,000 users. The integration will allow investors to trade directly within the TC platform and access market intelligence tools. Previously, such services were only available TC Cripto subscribers who also held Mercado Bitcoin accounts; the investor can now carry out the entire operation on a single platform. Pedro Albuquerque, CEO of TC, said in a statement:
“We have taken strong steps towards the new phase of the TC, which is the transactional one. We have expanded the offer of services from courses, debates, content, news and now also the purchase and sale of crypto assets.” (Portal do Bitcoin)
Crypto exchange Gate.io will sponsor Enzo and Pietro Fittipaldi, the Brazilian Formula 1 racers, for the 2022 season. The brothers recently launched an NFT auction in which 100% of profits raised will be donated to Ukrainian refugees. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Bahia Sport Club is partnering with Socios.com to launch its own fan token, $BAHIA. It will be the 8th football club in Brazil to launch a fan token. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Méliuz, a fintech that offers points and cashback programs in Brazil, is partnering with Liqi to offer crypto exposure to its 23 million customers. The deal also involves a potential minority acquisition of Liqi. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (Valor Investe)
Elo, one of the major credit and debit card brands in Brazil, has issued a public call for cryptocurrency startups to present their solutions to the company. It will select 10 companies to participate in a cohort focused on enabling crypto payments. (Livecoins)
Real estate giant Gafisa announced a partnership with crypto exchange Foxbit to accept bitcoin and other cryptos for purchases of apartments and other property. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (MoneyTimes)
São Paulo FC becomes the first Brazilian football club to accept crypto payments for ticket sales, via a new partnership with Bitso. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (MoneyTimes) (InfoMoney)
Brazilian platform LoopiPay announced a new partnership with Ledger allowing users to purchase tokens direct from the Ledger Live app. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Cruzeiro, the Minas Gerais football club, is suing the companies it hired to launch its CRZ fan token. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
🎮 NFTs, Gaming and Metaverse
Mercado Bitcoin will distribute more than R$1.6m (US$338k) to holders of the Vila token, the fan token of the Santos Futebol Clube, as part the FIFA Solidarity Mechanism - in which clubs hold rights to a percentage of income generated by players they developed. This distribution is the first of four installments corresponding to the sale of striker Yuri Alberto from Internacional to Remit, of Russia. Santos also announced it will launch an NFT collection to commemorate its 1962 championship. (CoinTelegraph Brasil).
NFT.Rio, an exhibition that will be held June 30 and July 3, will feature the private NFT collection of Cozomo de’ Medici - aka Snoop Dogg, which is currently valued at US$7.7m. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Invillia, a multinational firm partly owned by Brazilian media conglomerate UOL Group, is launching its own “Bored Devs” NFT collection. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Brazilian graffiti artists OsGêmeos flagged that someone has been producing and selling counterfeit NFTs of their work. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Brazilian non-profit Mães da Sé listed an NFT on OpenSea for the maximum value accepted by the platform - 99,999,999,999,999 ETH - to drive awareness to its cause of aiding missing children in Brazil. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Apecoin, the native token of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT community, has been added to the NFTS11, the first metaverse-focused ETF in Brazil on the B3. It tracks the MVIS CryptoCompare Media & Entertainment Leaders index, which is made up of eight coins - The Sandbox, Axie Infinity Shards, Gala, Basic Attention Token, Chiliz, Enjin Coin, Decentraland, and Apecoin. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Take4Games, a Brazilian play-to-earn game studio, will launch its new game Universus in Q3 of 2022. Gab Araujo, one of the founders of Take4Games, said:
"The Universus game sequence, which can be considered a real metaverse, was designed to bring education, democratization and fun to all players. In addition, it was a concern from the beginning to bring a safe and reliable model, suitable for the Brazilian market that , historically, suffers from being late compared to developed countries.” (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
🏛 Public Policy, Regulation and Enforcement
The CVM, Brazil’s securities regulator, declared in a clarifying letter to the Senate that Binance has no existing operating irregularities in Brazil because it no longer offers derivatives products in the country. The note came as follow up to the agency’s move last year to restrict Binance from offering futures trading to Brazilian customers. The agency also affirmed that commercial performance of crypto exchanges, whether foreign or local, do not fall into its regulatory orbit since crypto-assets don’t fit the definition of a security. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
However, reporting by Portal do Bitcoin discovered that it’s still possible to for Brazilian users to access Binance Futures simply by changing the language on the feature. The exchange’s support channel even offers a step-by-step guide on how to do this.
Brazil’s Economy Minister Paulo Guedes floated the idea of a tax on imported purchases made with bitcoin at an event hosted by TC and Arko Advice. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Federal Deputy Expedito Netto issued a guarantee that Brazil’s “Bitcoin Law”, which passed the Senate last month, will be approved by the Chamber of Deputies soon and move to President Jair Bolsonaro’s desk for signature. He stated:
"I believe that we will have no difficulty moving forward with this text in the Chamber of Deputies. Not least because we ran against time with the Senate so that the text voted was ours and that it returned to the Chamber to proceed for promulgation. vote, we only had the New Party, which voted against”. (Valor Investe)
A group of entities representing Brazilian crypto firms sent an open letter to federal deputies asking for a quick approval of the crypto regulation bill that passed the Senate last month. (Folha de S. Paulo)
A Febraban official said that Brazil must have a “very active” crypto regulatory body in the current market. Leandro Vilain, director of innovation, products and services, said: “It is necessary to have a regulatory body that is very active in this crypto-asset market”. Febraban is the largest trade group representing Brazil’s banking industry. (Portal do Bitcoin)
The Banco Central has made its largest gold purchases in two decades over the last couple of months, but it has been unresponsive to questions about its activities. (Portal do Bitcoin)
The Receita Federal, Brazil’s tax authority, re-affirmed that Brazilians must pay capital gains taxes on transactions that involve trading one cryptocurrency for another, provided that the value exceeds R$35,000 per month. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
A delegation from Bitso held a videoconference meeting with Banco Central regulatory director Otavio Ribeiro Damaso last week. Participants from Bitso’s side included Felipe Vallejo (Head of Regulation), Julián Colombo (Head of Policy in Argentina), Bárbara Espir (Head of Policy in Brazil), Daniel Steinberg (Head of Regulatory Strategy in Brazil) and Ana Beron (specialist in regulatory affairs). Bitso also joined ABCripto, a trade group representing crypto businesses from around the country. (Livecoins)
The CVM issued a stop order to Media Force Limited for offering foreign exchange and cryptocurrency trading services in the country without authorization. (Portal do Bitcoin) (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
A job posting for a substitute judge for the Federal Court of the 4th Region requires knowledge of cryptocurrencies and blockchain, per a notice published in the Official Gazette of the Union. The 4th Region covers all of the states in Brazil’s Southern region. (Portal do Bitcoin)
80 agents from Brazilian law enforcement received training from US agencies, including CIA, FBI and Department of Homeland on Security, on fighting and preventing crimes committed with cryptocurrency. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (Valor Investe)
A Rio de Janeiro court has suspended all actions against and debt executions by GAS Consultoria while a new judicial recovery plan is being formulated. The company has 30 days to present the revised plan. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Glaidson Acacio dos Santos, founder of GAS Consultoria, had R$90m (US$19m) worth of the cryptocurrency DASH in his possession when he was arrested by authorities last August. (Livecoins)