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Olá pessoal!
Tony Volpon is a former banking executive and deputy governor of the Central Bank of Brazil turned crypto entrepreneur.
He joins the show today to chat about his red pill moment and how he went down the bitcoin rabbit hole, the role of bitcoin in Brazil from a macro perspective and also his efforts to tokenize Brazil's real estate market through his company CF Inovação - which is building the Index marketplace.
With nearly 25 years in banking and a front-row seat to Brazil's economic challenges over the last several decades, Tony offers an incredible persective.
The Macro Context: Why Bitcoin Matters in the Global Economic Backdrop
His journey into crypto began during his tenure at Brazil's central bank. There, he witnessed firsthand the limitations of traditional financial systems and how an asset like bitcoin can serve against systemic governance failures — even in historically stable economies like the United States.
We spend some time comparing the fiscal situations of the US and Brazil, respectively:
Debt Crisis Reality: Even with some attempts to cut spending in the US this year, the country’s debt now surpasses US$37 trillion. Unless there is a miraculous productivity boost from AI, this debt will likely need to be inflated away
The "Brazilianization" of Global Markets: Risk premiums are becoming necessary even for traditionally "safe" assets like US Treasuries
Political Flexibility Paradox: Brazil may actually have more political capacity for fiscal reform than the United States
Tokenized Real Estate: The Holy Grail
While countless tokenized real estate projects have sprouted up and vanished over the past decade, Volpon believes he has the right ingredients for success in Brazil - namely buy-in from the right regulators and a partnership with Netspaces.
CF Inovação has created a comprehensive ecosystem to tokenize Brazil's real estate market, built on four foundational elements:
1. Digital Contract Registry (SGR)
A system for on-chain contract storage that puts all real estate contracts directly on blockchain rather than relying on external trusts or notaries
Direct integration with government auditing infrastructure, allowing COFECI's 3,000 auditors to verify and monitor tokenized projects in real-time
2. Regulatory Framework
CF is collaborating with COFECI (Brazil's real estate regulator) to create specific tokenization regulations that establish legal clarity for all market participants including brokers, developers, and token buyers
3. Commercial Infrastructure
The company is creating a platform for developers and brokers that provides a unified interface for listing tokenized real estate projects and managing the entire sales process
This platfform would allow access to Brazil’s 450,000 registered brokers, who could serve as a potential sales force
4. Token Marketplace Partnership
CF is partnering with NetSpaces for deed tokenization that enables trading of property ownership through tokens (while keeping the actual deed frozen in a legal depository)
This solution would be viable for both pre-construction forward contracts and existing properties, covering the entire real estate lifecycle from development to resale
Market Impact and Global Implications
The platform addresses critical pain points in Brazil's real estate market, where transaction costs can reach 10% of property value. By reducing these costs and creating unprecedented liquidity, the solution could:
Enable international investment through stablecoin integration
Provide alternative financing for underserved regional developers
Create a secondary market for pre-construction investments
Establish a regulatory model for global adoption
Looking Ahead: With regulatory approval expected soon and a beta launch planned for year-end, Volpon's vision represents potentially the world's first comprehensive, regulator-backed real estate tokenization ecosystem. As he notes,
"Real estate is by far the biggest asset class in the world, it's totally illiquid, and it's mostly inaccessible. To bring that into [tokenization] could be really revolutionary."
I really enjoyed this conversation with Tony and I hope you do as well. You can connect with him on Linkedin
-AWS
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