Bits and Borders

Leo Schwartz is a crypto reporter at Fortune covering focusing on policy and regulation. Leo has prior experience covering technology in Spanish-speaking Latin America, but he recently made his first trip to Brazil to host several crypto panels at Web Summit Rio and meet several of the key players from the local industry. In this episode, we talk about how the conference opened his eyes to Brazil&...

Hashdex has established itself as a global pioneer in crypto asset management since being founded in 2018. It is also one of the crown jewels of Brazil’s crypto ecosystem, with more than US$400 million in AUM. But the firm’s vision expands far beyond just Brazil and Latam. For this latest podcast I spoke with Bruno Ramos de Sousa , Partner and Head of US and Europe, about Hashdex’s rise to promine...

News broke last week that the CVM, the Brazilian SEC, referred Binance to federal prosecutors for allegedly offering crypto derivatives products to Brazilian customers in defiance of a cease and desist order. Further reporting this week has revealed that the CVM’s inquiry began in June 2022 after a Binance customer service representative told a Portal do Bitcoin reporter, posing as a trader, that...

Please follow and subscribe to  Brazil Crypto Report  on Substack for more news, analysis and interviews examining the Brazil crypto ecosystem.   In today’s episode I talk with Jorge Borges who heads up Fireblocks’ sales operations for Brazil and Latin America. We talk about Jorge’s background in finance and tech before jumping into crypto and digital assets. Fireblocks provides blockchain infrast...

Rony Szuster covers Ethereum and smart contract platforms for Mercado Bitcoin’s research team. He was kind enough to join the podcast to help us understand these critical updates, the impacts they may have on the market and how they fit into the broader Ethereum roadmap. In this episode we cover: the difference between Ethereum’s Consensus Layer and Execution Layer, and how the two chains communic...

Nearly two years after first entering the Brazil market, Bitso Brasil received its payment institution license last week from the Brazilian Central Bank. The license will enable the exchange to offer a new array of financial products and services in the market. I took the occasion to catch up with Bitso CEO Daniel Vogel and Thales de Freitas, CEO of Bitso Brasil, to discuss the new license as well...

Juliana Walenkamp is the head of institutional sales for Latam at BitGo in Brazil and has spent time representing other Web3 household names like Ripple, Gemini and Transfero in the region. In this conversation we dive into the evolution of BitGo as a company since first offering basic multi-sig products in 2013 to becoming a full-fledged qualified custodian that offers a plethora of other product...

For today’s episode I brought in one of the Brazil’s top crypto journalists and one of the its leading Web3 investors to discuss the potential impacts of this technology on Brazil’s economy. Both are friends and previous guests of the show João Zecchin is a co-founder of Fuse Capital, which is one of Brazil’s first Web3 native venture capital firms. You can listen to my previous episode with him h...

Mauricio Magaldi of Blockchain Insider joins to discuss his predictions for the Brazil crypto ecosystem in 2023. We touch on the Brazil regulatory angle, technology adoption and the growth of asset tokenization projects in the country.    You can follow Mauricio and Blockchain Insider on Spotify   Also be sure to check out his Portuguese language podcast BlockDrops   Please fol...

Gustavo Cunha is a Brazilian financial services veteran turned crypto enthusiast, podcaster and writer. In this episode we discuss the Brazilian Central Bank's efforts to develop a central bank digital currency (CBDC) called the Digital Real. We discuss: - the Digital Real pilot announced on March 6 - the Bank's decision to use Hyperledger Besu for the Digital Real's underlying infrastructure - th...

Portal do Bitcoin reporter Fernando Martines joins the podcast to discuss the emergence and collapse of Braiscompany - a R$1.5 billion (US$289 million) cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that operated out of the northeastern state of Paraíba. In what some have dubbed as Brazil's last major bitcoin Ponzi scheme, the operation involved everyone from local politicians and business leaders to an estimated...

João Marco Braga da Cunha is a Brazilian economist and portfolio manager with Hashdex, Brazil's largest crypto asset manager. In this episode we discuss a proposal being propagated recently by Brazilian and Argentine leaders about creating a shared currency between the two countries as a way to stimulate trade and reduce dependence on the US dollar. The idea generated a lot of coverage within the...

Karen Duque is head of public policy at Bitso Brasil and previously worked on Brazil policy at Google and Didi, a rideshare company. Julien Dutra is head of government relations at 2TM/Mercado Bitcoin. Before joining in January 2022, he led Brazil government affairs for Experian.  Both are seasoned tech policy professionals in Brasília and were critical in the successful effort to pass crypto...

Axel Blikstad is a founding partner at BLP Crypto and a two-decade veteran of traditional finance with stints at BTG Pactual, Santander, Banco Garantia and ABN Amro. BLP Crypto is Brazil's oldest crypto fund manager, having launched its first fund in December 2017. In this episode we discuss the ramifications of the FTX collapse on the Brazil crypto ecosystem and how he was able to liquidate his F...

Andre Franco is the head of research at Mercado Bitcoin and the host of the Francamente Crypto podcast . In this episode we examine how the collapse of FTX impacts Brazil's emerging crypto scene. We look explore the ramifications for retail and institutional investors, prospects for regulation and what it will take to rebuild trust among users. We also explore what this means for the broader crypt...

Isac is a technologist, lawyer, professor and a frequently-cited commenter on questions of crypto regulation in Brazil. He is also a former CVM staffer and advisor so has a great understanding of how things work inside the agency. In this episode we discuss: the core tenets of the guidance - what it does and does not clarify why the CVM chose to release this opinion now the differences between the...

Marcello Mari is the CEO of SingularityDAO , which is a noncustodial onchain asset management platform that incorporates artificial intelligence tools for decentralized finance. We discuss how SingularityDAO built off of the success of early-generation projects like SingularityNet and how Brazil has become to SingularityDAO’s most vibrant community. The project’s native token has surged to become...

Garrett Kinsman is the co-founder of Nodle, a decentralized network powered by millions of smartphones built to power the Internet of Things. Nodle's "connect-to-earn" platform allows users to earn NODL tokens simply by downloading and running the Nodle app on a smartphone. I caught up with Garrett at the Blockchain Rio Festival last month to discuss more about this exciting platform and why his t...

This week I’m trying out a new podcast format in which I bring on a guest to discuss and analyze the biggest crypto news developments in the region. This will be an ongoing experiment as I attempt to cover more crypto news across the Latam beyond Brazil. This week, my guest is Andres Engler , who is the Latin America Editor at CoinDesk and is based in Argentina. In this week’s episode we talk thro...

Bobby Ong is the COO and co-founder of CoinGecko . Based out of Malaysia, CoinGecko rivals CoinMarketCap for supremacy atop the world of crypto price and data platforms. In this episode we talk about how CoinGecko grew from a side hustle project run from Bobby's bedroom into one of the most popular coin data websites in the world. We also dive into how meme coins and play-to-earn gaming tokens are...

Maxim Piessen is the chief technology at Credix, a decentralized credit marketplace that is one of the most intriguing crypto startups to emerge out of Brazil recently and one of just a handful of companies out there that are connecting decentralized finance with real-world assets. Credix is a Solana-based marketplace that connects institutional investors with fintechs and non-bank loan originator...

Renata Rodrigues is global community and education lead at Paxful, which is one of the world's largest peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplaces. The platform recently hit 10 million users globally and is now making a push to bring financial education to users across Brazil and Latin America. We discuss how Paxful's platform operates, how it's providing financial opportunities to under-banked populations...

Mila Rioja is Latam Lead at Celo Foundation. In this episode we dive into Celo’s mission of using “sacred economics” to create financial prosperity via a mobile-first blockchain and technology stack. We also talk about the state of Celo’s ecosystem in Brazil and Latam - most notably the cREAL stablecoin that was launched earlier this year and has gained significant adoption and liquidity in just s...

Conor Brady heads up Ethereum Brasil, which is supporting the Web3 community in Brazil. In this episode we discuss the upcoming ETH SP event and how he’s using it to support the builder community in Brazil and keep driving momentum after a super successful Ethereum Rio conference last March. The market conditions may be different now and prices may be down, but there’s still a ton of energy in the...

Guilherme Rebane is the head of Latam and Brazil at OSL, which is one of the world’s largest digital asset platforms and liquidity providers for institutions. He spent 20 years working in traditional finance as an equities, derivatives and FX trader, and now he leads business development and operations for OSL across the Latin America region. In this episode, we discuss the rapid maturation of the...