Bits and Borders

Isac Costa is a computer scientist, a former regulator with the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission and a professor at Ibmec and Insper - two of Brazil's top business schools. He's also been keenly observing the development of legislation that would create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and digital assets in Brazil. This legislation was expected to pass earlier this summer bu...

Tatiana Sampaio is chief marketing officer for the Blockchain Rio festival, which will take place in the Cidade Maravilhosa September 1-4. She gives us a sneak preview into what is being billed as Latin America's largest blockchain event. We discuss the content themes and structure, the side events and the involvement of the Rio government, local economic development agencies and the Brazilian Cen...

Brazilian UFC fighters Matheus Nicolau and Luana Pinheiro have taken the bold step of accepting a portion of their salary in bitcoin via a partnership with Bitwage. Matheus holds an 18-3-1 record and is currently ranked 7th worldwide in the UFC flyweight division. Luana is 10-1 in UFC competition and is ranked 18th in the women’s strawweight division. In this episode, we dive into: how the couple...

Sabrina Tachdjian is the director of payments and fintech at HBAR Foundation. We discuss how the HBAR Foundation’s grant programs operate, what types of projects and teams she is keen to support, what a successful applicant looks like and a touch on a few success stories of grantees who are doing exciting work in the region and around the world. 🙏 I am super grateful to HBAR Foundation for suppor...

Ray Nasser is CEO of Arthur Mining and has nearly a decade of experience in the bitcoin mining world and two decades' worth of experience in financial markets. In this episode we discuss why Brazil has historically not been an attractive destination for bitcoin miners and how that could soon change based on potential legislative changes and other dynamics. Among these includes growing interest in...

João Zecchin is a co-founder of Fuse Capital, an early-stage investment firm based in Rio de Janeiro. We discuss how the Brazilian venture community is approaching crypto, how Fuse is looking to quickly deploy capital in the "Web 2.5" space with its forthcoming crypto fund, and how institutional investors in Brazil and North America are approaching crypto differently. Please follow and subscribe t...

Kirill Gertman is the CEO of Conduit Financial, which provides DeFi on and off-ramps for crypto exchanges, fintechs and neobanks. We talk about the opportunities and risks afforded by crypto yield products in Brazil and Latam given the current market conditions. We also dive into how brokers can offer these products to their customers without exposing themselves to excessive risk.  Please fol...

Portal do Bitcoin reporter Saori Honorato join the podcast to discuss Binance’s move to suspend real deposits and withdrawals last week while abruptly terminating Capitual, its local payment processor and fiat on/offramp. Please follow and subscribe to Brazil Crypto Report for more news, analysis and interviews examining the Brazil crypto ecosystem 🙏 Thanks to our partners at HBAR Foundation for...

Daniel Vogel is the CEO of Bitso, one of the largest exchanges and the first crypto unicorn company in Latin America. We discuss Bitso's first year of operation in the Brazilian market, how Brazil compares to other Latam countries like Mexico and Argentina where the company has had success, how impending regulation can help crypto’s image problems in Brazil, and his Consensus 2022 experience. Plea...

Mauricio Magaldi is Global Strategy Director for crypto at 11:FS, a digital banking and financial services consultancy out of London. He's also the host of the BlockDrops and BlockTalks podcasts, plays drums for a heavy metal band, has two cats and advises several startups in the crypto space.  We talk about his path from leading enterprise blockchain efforts for IBM in Latin America in 2017...

Conor Brady is the founder of Ethereum Brasil, which is devoted to supporting and growing the Web3 community in the country. We talk about how Conor came to live in Brazil and how he became a centerpiece of its crypto community, the wildly successful Ethereum Rio event and what's in the pipeline for Ethereum Brasil - including the upcoming ETH São Paulo event, which will be held August 18-19.&nbsp...

Zé Paulo is president of the Crypto Jr junior enterprise in Brazil. There are currently more than 1000 junior enterprises in Brazil that connect university students with employers on short-term consulting and job placements. Crypto Jr is the largest such initiative in Brazil focusing on cryptocurrency and Web3 technologies.   As hiring demand in crypto and Web3 reaches a fever pitch, a pipeli...

Kristin Majcher is Senior Correspondent for Latin America at The Block , which is a leading crypto news, research and data platform. We discuss Kristin’s first encounter with a crypto ad on a Buenos Aires subway in 2019 and how that metastasized into her becoming a full-time crypto reporter covering the region. Kristin talks about how she’s seeing unprecedented interest in the Brazil crypto market...

Andrés Engler is Latin America Editor at CoinDesk, where he oversees all coverage of Brazil and the Latam region. We talk about Coinbase's decision to scrap its plans to acquire Mercado Bitcoin and the ramifications this will have on crypto mergers and acquisition activity in Brazil this year. We also chat about developments in Andrés' home market Argentina, Panama and elsewhere in Latam.  Su...

Kim Grauer is the Director of Research at Chainalysis, a leading blockchain analytics and data company that recently published an on-chain analysis of cryptocurrency gains by country analysis for the year 2021 and an annual report looking at the Geography of Cryptocurrency . Kim discusses the methodologies and shares key findings from her reports pertaining to Brazil and the Latam market.  Su...

Fabrício Tota is head of new business at Mercado Bitcoin, which is Brazil's first unicorn crypto exchange. We discuss Mercado Bitcoin's explosive growth figures in 2020 and 2021, pending legislation that would regulate crypto exchanges in Brazil and the exchange's roadmap for the coming months and years Subscribe to Brazil Crypto Report for news and analysis on this critical market

Deribit's country manager joins to discuss the adoption of crypto options and futures markets in Brazil. We talk about Brazilian traders and financial institutions like hedge funds, prop trading entities, crypto exchanges and quantitative/HFT trading firms are increasingly using these products to generate alpha and hedge against risk. Follow and subscribe to Brazil Crypto Report at http://brazilcr...

I'm joined by Paulo Alves, crypto editor at InfoMoney, to discuss the blitzkrieg of crypto news coming out of Brazil over the last month.  We discuss Rio de Janeiro's ambitions to transform itself into a crypto capital in the region and why that's proving to be more difficult than expected. We also go into CZ's recent charm offensive in Brazil and Binance's plans to formally enter the market,...

In this inaugural edition I sit down with Antonio Neto, the head of Brazil and Latam at FTX. While FTX is seemingly taking over the entire world right now, it has played a quiet yet important role in Brazil over the last couple of years and will undoubtedly be a critical player for years to come. As FTX’s first employee in the Latam region, Antonio has had a front row seat to the exchange’s explos...