Bits and Borders

Jean Hansen and and Victor Cioffi are core team members of Ipê City, which is a month-long Pop-Up city experiment coming to Florianopolis from April 22 - May 22. We discuss their vision for bringing together 150-200 techno-optimists, builders, and innovators in Brazil's Silicon Valley to prototype solutions to real world problems facing Brazil and Latin America. Ipê City is modeled after the "netw...

Danielle Teixeira is a program manager at Fenasbac, which is linked to the Central Bank of Brazil and runs several startup acceleration programs critical to promoting financial innovation in Brazil. She joins host Aaron Stanley to discuss Fenasbac's current NEXT Accelerator program, which features prominent sponsors including Banco do Brasil, Ripple, and Mercado Bitcoin , focusing on challenge...

This episode is the soft-launch of a special mini-series called Bits & Borders that will take us on a country-by-country tour exploring crypto adoption across Latin America. Each episode will spotlight a different country and map out the various adoption trends, entrepreneurial energy and regulatory environment in that specific nation. 🔥The first stop on our tour is: Guyana! As Guyana emerges...

This episode is a panel discussion hosted at Brazil House during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The panel was hosted by BCR founder Aaron Stanley and featured Andre Portilho, head of digital assets at BTG Pactual; Caroline Malcolm of Oxford University; Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer at Circle and Alan Cohn, partner at Steptoe, LLC in Washington, DC We discuss institutional...

Antonio Neto is the founder of Vega Crypto and the CEO of Ethereum Brasil. Previously, he was the Head of Brazil and Latin America at cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In Part Two of this two part conversation, he sits down with host Aaron Stanley to share for the first time his front-row seat view of the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX 0:46 - Personal impact of FTX collapse 3:07 - Handling NFTs...

Antonio Neto is the founder of Vega Crypto and the CEO of Ethereum Brasil. Previously, he was the Head of Brazil and Latin America at cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In part one of this two part conversation, he sits down with host Aaron Stanley to share for the first time his front-row seat view of the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX 02:38 - Antonio's Role at FTX 08:13 - FTX's Meteoric...

Marcelo Brogliato and Yan Martins are co-founders of Hathor, a network that deploys a unique hybrid DAG-blockchain framework. They join host Aaron Stanley to discuss exciting new features and community initiatives for 2025 as the project celebrates its fifth anniversary. These include "nanocontracts" written in Python, anti-MEV mechanisms and new developments on the real-world asset tokenization f...

David Lawant is Head of Research at FalconX, a leading institutional crypto prime brokerage in the US. He joins host Aaron Stanley to talk about crypto market structure heading into 2025, notably the incredible liquidity surge seen after the US elections in November. Lawant argues that these liquidity trends, combined with an improving regulatory environment and clearer investment thesis, could ma...

Guilherme Nazar is Regional VP for Latam at Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. He joins host Aaron Stanley to discuss his previous experience building out Uber's operations in Brazil, Binance's growth in Brazil and the Latam region, the company's regulatory positioning under new CEO Richard Teng and the exchange's roadmap for Latam in 2025 00:30 Introduction 01:46 Guilherme's ba...

Wei Zhou is the CEO of Coins and the former CFO of Binance. He joins host Aaron Stanley to discuss his recent acquisition of Coins.ph - the Philippines' oldest and most successful crypto exchange and how he is expanding its operations to the rest of the developing world You can connect with Wei on X/Twitter and Linkedin --------------------------------------------------------------- LIT Collective...

Rodrigo Borges is a partner at Carvalho Borges Araujo Advogados in Sao Paulo. He joins host Aaron Stanley to discuss a newly proposed rule by the Brazilian Central Bank to prohibit crypto exchanges from transferring stablecoins to self-custodied wallets This is an extremely important development with lots of implications for crypto markets, operators and users in the Brazil market. The comment per...

Noelle Acheson is an expert analyst focusing on the intersection of crypto and macroeconomy. She was previously head of research at CoinDesk and led institutional research efforts at Genesis Trading, and now she's the author of the Crypto is Macro Now newsletter She joins host Aaron Stanley to discuss recent developments in the crypto markets, including the US presidential election, a potential st...

Today Aaron talks to Emin Gün Sirer — CEO of Ava Labs , a former computer science professor at Cornell University and the mastermind behind the Avalanche blockchain. We discuss how Avalanche's deployment of subnets offers an alternative to the ongoing modular versus monolithic debate, recent successes on the gaming and tokenization fronts, and the Avalanche community’s strategic focus on emerging...

Tatiana Guazzelli is a partner at Pinheiro Neto Advogados, which is one of Brazil’s largest and most prominent law firms and represents some of the top crypto companies operating in the country. Tatiana provides important perspective on the many simultaneous movements happening with regard to crypto regulation in Brazil These developments include: The Central Bank's proposed licensing structure, w...

Aaron is joined by attorney Nicky Dyskant for an overview discussion of new regulatory developments coming out of Brazil. These include proposed crypto licensing rules and a public comment window put forth by the Central Bank , stablecoin and asset segregation legislation moving through Congress, and public consultations from Brazil's tax and securities authorities. You can connect with Nicky on L...

Aaron sits down with Samson Mow, CEO of Jan3, as we explore the future of Bitcoin adoption at the nation-state level and its implications for the global financial system. Key Takeaways: Learn how countries are exploring Bitcoin adoption through three main strategies: legal tender implementation, mining operations, and treasury allocation Discover why the race for national Bitcoin reserves could cr...

Hashdex CIO Samir Kerbage joins Brazil Crypto Report to discuss how the upcoming U.S. presidential election could impact crypto markets globally. We explore prediction markets, institutional adoption trends, and what various election outcomes could mean for crypto regulation in both the U.S. and Brazil. Key Topics: Why Congressional outcomes may matter more than the presidential race for crypto's...

Former Reuters executive Saul Hudson shares insights from his journey from international journalism to crypto communications, discussing the evolution of crypto media and Latin America's growing importance in the Web3 space. Key Takeaways: From backpacking journalist to Reuters Americas executive, Hudson's unique path shows how understanding traditional finance crises led to crypto advocacy Crypto...

Juliana Felippe is Chief Revenue Officer at Transfero. In this conversation we discuss Transfero's 10 years in the crypto market, the company's role in the Brazil ecosystem today and its vision for global expansion You can connect with Juliana on Linkedin ---------------------------------------------------------------- 🇧🇷Brazil Crypto Report is presented by Kaleido ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Kaleido ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Gladstone Arantes is a blockchain specialist at BNDES, Brazil's national development bank, and is coordinating development of the Brazilian Blockchain Network (known by the Portuguese acronym RBB). We talk about how the RBB is using blockchain tech to pioneer new governmental and public interest use cases in Brazil. You can connect with Gladstone on Linkedin . -------------------------------------...

Crecimiento is a movement to turn Argentina into a hub for crypto startups and talent. It kicked off in full force in August with the month-long Aleph Pop-Up City in Buenos Aires, which featured nearly 70 startups, hackathons and 2,500 participants. To tell us more about this movement, Aaron talks to Matthias Broner, head of growth for Latam at Matter Labs, - builder of the ZKsync protocol, and Mi...

Pedro Solimano is a bitcoin reporter at The Defiant and the host of the Beyond the Beat podcast that explores trends in crypto media and content. In this crossover episode, we discuss the latest trends in crypto media in the region and explore why crypto in Latam doesn't get as much attention as it should You can connect with Pedro on Linkedin --------------------------------------------------...

Today Aaron speaks with Guillherme Goncalves and Alessandro Cecere of El Dorado, which is a peer-to-peer marketplace for stablecoins that has more than 250,000 users in Latin America and more than 70 integrations with traditional payment channels in the region We talk about the history of crypto adoption in Venezuela, the role of peer-to-peer marketplaces, and why stablecoins are critical for remi...

Theodoro Fleury is chief investment officer at QR Asset, which launched the world's first Solana spot ETF in Brazil on August 29, 2024. We discuss the new fund and why QR Asset is bullish on single-asset crypto ETFs moving forward ---------------------------------------------------------------- 🇧🇷Brazil Crypto Report is presented by Kaleido ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Kaleido ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is the most trusted digital ass...

Aron van Ammers is CTO at Outlier Ventures, one of the longest running Web3 venture firms. We discuss Outlier's new Latin America Base Camp accelerator program, which will help crypto founders from the region take the next steps building their product, finding product market fit and fundraising. Applications for the program are open until early September 2024. You can connect with Aron on Link...