🇧🇷BCR #58: 🧱Ethereum São Paulo Edition
🇧🇷BCR #58: 🧱Ethereum São Paulo Edition
Plus: Metamask launches Pix integration; 1.3 million Brazilians reported trading crypto in July; Digital Real testing begins
Fala pessoal!
Greetings and welcome to 🇧🇷Brazil Crypto Report for the week of September 5-9, 2022. It was great meeting so many of you at the Ethereum São Paulo event this weekend.
Shout out to Conor Brady and Solange Gueiros and the Ethereum Brasil team for putting on a great event. It was an honor to represent the Filecoin ecosystem with my colleague Alexandre.
I really enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with local builders and enthusiasts. It was super cool to rub shoulders with some key names in the Ethereum world like Skylar from Ethereum Foundation - who runs DevCon (next month in Colombia) and Alex Van Der Sande - who is one of the earliest Ethereum developers and was one of the key characters in the 2016 DAO hack story.
This was also my first time ever judging in a hackathon so quite a novel experience. Huge congrats to all of the winners, and especially the Web3RP, Our Neighbors and StableBridge teams who won $2,500 each from the Filecoin prize pool.
Thanks to everyone for reading and I hope you enjoy this week’s edition!
-AWS
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BTC: 3FQ5Tz8S7o9tBxgj2j9T3LnqJFWuFaGYrt
ETH: 0x517bAEC8000FF2052f7B0BF56c5FDd9B6A5c69ab
🗞Brazil Crypto News Rundown
📈 Markets
1.3m Brazilians traded (and reported) US$2.5bn worth of cryptocurrencies in July 2022. The total volume is roughly the same as July 2021, though it is down 10.6% from June 2022.
The number of unique CPFs reporting trades was up 68% from 795,000 in June and up nearly 4x from 315,000 in July 2021
This data only includes crypto purchases made on domestic Brazilian exchanges that are required to report user transaction activity to the federal government (per Normative Instruction 1888)
Anbima, a trade group representing capital markets entites, estimates that 4.2m - roughly 2% of the population - were invested in crypto as of June
R$8.2bn (US$1.6bn) of the reported trades for July occurred on Brazilian exchanges, while R$1bn (US$200m) was reported on non-domiciled exchanges. R$3bn (US$589m) in transactions were exchanged on a peer-to-peer basis
2.9 million bitcoin transactions that moved R$1.7bn (US$333m) were reported. Ethereum had 1.4 million transactions worth R$612m (US$120m). Tether had 90,000 transactions worth R$7.8bn (US$1.5bn) for the month.
The total volume for the month marks the first time Receita Federal data has shown more than one million crypto investors in the country. (Portal do Bitcoin) (Exame) (CoinDesk) (Valor Investe) (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Metamask announced an integration with Pix that will allow 126 million Brazilian users to fund their wallets using the instant payment system. The integration was made via MoonPay, which takes 1% commission plus a network fee calculated in real time. (CoinDesk)
Bitso claims to have tripled its Brazil-based trading volume between June and August, when competitor Binance was running into problems with its local payment processor and had to suspend withdrawals and deposits. (Valor)
Decentralized credit marketplace Credix raised R$60m (US$11m) in a Series A funding round. The round was led by US-based funds Motive Partners and ParaFi, with participation from Valor Capital, Fuse Capital, former SoftBank COO Marcelo Claure, Itaú Latin America President Ricardo Villela Marino and others. Loan originators have received US$23m in financing through the platform in recent months. I recently recorded a podcast episode with Credix team and will be releasing soon, so have a listen to learn more about this exciting platform. (Portal do Bitcoin) (The Block) (InfoMoney)
The CVM, Brazil’s securities regulator, ordered Singapore-based crypto exchange Bybit to stop offering securities and derivatives products in the country. However, the exchange is still allowed to offer spot trading of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The stop order is similar to the one the CVM issued to Binance in 2020. Bybit first launched in Brazil in April of this year. (Portal do Bitcoin) (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (InfoMoney) (Valor Investe)
LoopiPay listed Solana on its platform, giving it nearly 2,000 total listings across the Polygon, Avalanche, Ethereum, Fantom, Ronin and BNB blockchains. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Fintech giant Revolut plans to launch its application in Brazil in November. It will offer trading in global equities, commodities and cryptocurrencies. (Neofeed)
Yulgan Lira, the Brazilian co-founder Swiss-based Colb Asset, has launched a token that replicates the performance of the Blackrock World Technology Fund. Instead of the minimum US$100,000 investment required to buy in to the Blackrock fund, Lira emphasized that his fund democratizes access:
“We are in the area of funds, which have major barriers to entry that tokenization solves. In the case of this BlackRock fund, the minimum entry was $100,000. Now it can be sold at much lower prices.” (Valor)
Asset manager Hashdex changed the compositions of its META11, DEFI11 and WEB311 ETFs, which represent exposure to metaverse, DeFi and Web3 token baskets, respectively.
For the META11, Audius was replaced by Ape Coin (APE) and Gala Games (GALA). Ampleforth (AMP) is replaced by 1INCH and Avalanche (AVAX) in DEFI11; and AVAX, EOS, Ethereum Classic (ETC) and Internet Computer (IC) join WEB311. (InfoMoney)
Former JP Morgan director Marcel Borelli received CVM approval for a new fund, Farviewjá, offering crypto and other investments. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
📱Adoption
Invest Rio CEO Rodrigo Stallone departed his role to join Transfero as director of new business. Before joining Invest Rio - where he led the Crypto Rio working group to study the market opportunity for the city, he was an aid for Chicão Bulhões. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Vinteum, a Brazilian bitcoin development non-profit, received a US$25,000 donation from Human Rights Foundation. (Livecoins) (Portal do Bitcoin)
The Banco Central began its Digital Real testing using the nine companies selected in the LIFT challenge earlier this year. Public testing will begin at a later date, BC President Roberto Campos Neto explained, to small subsets of the population - ala China’s approach with the Digital Yuan. (CoinTelegraph Brasil) (InfoMoney)
Former Guns N 'Roses drummer Matt Sorum is working with decentralized science platform Sthorm to raise funds for hospitals and vaccine and antibody research. Speaking at the ViralCure Festival in Piracicaba, Sorum commented:
"With ViralCure we now have a patent on antibodies that will save lives around the world. We will allow everyone to have access to health care, people who cannot afford or will be able to take care of their loved ones, their family. is more important than anything and we are here to save families, save lives and blockchain is fundamental in our journey.”
I’ve had the chance to hang out with Sorum a couple of times in the past. Super cool guy who believes in the tech and the mission. Here’s a picture of him and I on the same panel together from Davos 2019. He’s second from the left, I’m on the far right.
Paxful, the peer-to-peer crypto exchange, eclipsed 10 million users globally, with making up its second largest market in Latin America and largest trade volume. Daniel Carvalho Lopes, who is leading new business for the region, expects trading volume in Brazil to increase by 85% this year. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Decentralized wireless network Nodle Network is making a big adoption push in Brazil to build its global network of smart device connectivity and geolocation. Nodle allows anyone with a smart device to connect via bluetooth and become a node, thereby earning Nodle Cash tokens that can be traded via its “connect to earn” model. Nodle formally launched in Brazil as the premier sponsor of Blockchain Rio earlier this month. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
The Blockchain Rio conference earlier this month drew 8,000 attendees over the course of four days. (BeinCrypto)
Natalia Beauty Group will begin accepting cryptocurrency payments and is building a blockchain ecosystem to engage customers using the white label solution Wiboo. Wiboo CEO Pedro Alexandre commented:
“Through the platform, the group will have not only the currency but also the means of payment and all the practicality involving influencer marketing, recommendation and reward marketing, loyalty, affiliates and sales.” (Crypto Times)
EMBRAPII, the Brazilian Association of Industrial Research and Innovation, invested in wconnect, a São Paulo based startup that developed the Simples Receita project. It works as a blockchain-based digital wallet which stores prescription info, vaccine data and other medical history in an immutable manner. (Livecoins)
Grupo Primo, the company run by influencer and crypto tycoon Thiago Nigro - aka Primo Rico - announced a new wave of layoffs of more than 50 people, bringing the total to 90 for the year. (Portal do Bitcoin)
🎮 NFTs, Gaming and Metaverse
Gaming startup Sherwa, founded by three Brazilians in 2018, has joined Web3 with the launch of a search engine and dashboard for play-to-earn games called CashDash. I had the chance to demo this product earlier today at Non-Fungible Conference in SP. It’s pretty cool. Check it out. Not financial advice. (InfoMoney)
Loud, the popular Brazilian e-sports gaming team, was featured in a Decrypt profile that explores its new parent company, called Spacecaps, which has built divisions focused on Solana-powered NFTs, crypto games and token incentives for fans.
Negroni Week, which takes place in bars across São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina and Parana between September 12-18, will give away NFTs to unlock benefits for customers. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Legendary Brazilian orchestra conductor João Carlos Martins released an NFT version of an unreleased recording of the arrangement País Tropical. Fans who purchase the NFT (available on the Simple platform) will also have access to an autographed vinyl and and exclusive concert tickets. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Football club Vasco da Gama is launching an NFT collection representing its new uniform after it became popular on social media among fans. (Portal do Bitcoin)
SP4CE, a Brazilian crypto gaming startup and creator of Latin America’s largest Axie Infinity community, was sold to members of the Select Investmentos group and will become a fintech focused on offering new crypto financial products to players. The founders are expected to depart their roles and focus on developing a new role playing game called Boom Boogers. (CoinTimes) (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
Hotmart distributed distributed NFTs to attendees as part of its 2022 Fire Festival in Belo Horizonte. (Livecoins)
Brazilian clothing brand Reserva is launching an NFT sneaker collection in the Decentraland metaverse. (Exame)
Brazilian project NFTFY is enabling fractionalized NFT purchases allowing people anywhere to invest in Bored Apes and CryptoPunks. (Exame)
Reality show Farm 14, hosted on Record TV, will have feature own space in the metaverse for fans to interact. (Livecoins)
🏛 Public Policy, Regulation and Enforcement
A São Paulo court put a transfer block on five luxury vehicles owned by BlueBenx executives Roberto Cardassi and William Batista. The combined value of the cars is estimated at R$1.4m, with the most expensive being a Porsche 4EHST valued at R$700,000. The decision to block transfer and circulation of the vehicles was made in response to customer lawsuits after BlueBenx froze customer withdrawals earlier this summer. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Rio de Janeiro authorities are seeking to extradite Mirelis Yoseline Dias Zerpa, wife of Glaidson Acacio dos Santos - aka “Pharaoh of Bitcoins”, from the US to Brazil. (Portal do Bitcoin)
Brazil’s CVM has been contacting “influencers” on finance Twitter warning about providing misleading investment advice. (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
In his first interviews after being hired as an advisor by Binance, Henrique Meirelles lauded cryptocurrencies as “the future” and said that he will focus on creating effective rules and regulations to ensure “smooth functioning of the market”.
In an interview with Portal do Bitcoin, he said that Binance would “lead the self-regulation process, with systems involving technology that mainly ensure the analysis of the origin of the money”, in reference to anti-money laundering controls
His relationship with Binance began recently in Paris where he received a two day immersive course from Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. He says he was invited to join the Binance advisory board by Daniel Mangabeira, Brazil director for the exchange.
Meirelles, a former president of the Brazilian Central Bank and former Finance Minister, told UOL:
“It is a very interesting market, obviously new, it represents the future, it has important gains from an economic point of view, as it can provide very fast payments without the need for intermediaries, therefore making operations faster, simpler, and less expensive.” (Portal do Bitcoin)
A P2P bitcoin seller in Alagoas who ghosted his buyer after receiving R$25,000 in payment was sentenced to more than a year in prison. (Livecoins)
120,000 former clients of GAS Consultoria registered with the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice attempting to recover funds they lost investing in the bitcoin pyramid scheme - a combined R$9.3bn (US$1.8bn). (CoinTelegraph Brasil)
The Instagram account of Flamengo, the popular Rio football club, was hacked by scammers promoting an Elon Musk bitcoin giveaway scam. (Livecoins)
A US man pleaded guilty to involvement in a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme called EmpiresX, which was created by two Brazilians and allegedly stole more than US$100m from investors. (Portal do Bitcoin)