Brazil Crypto Report

Olá pessoal! 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 l...

Olá pessoal, 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...

Olá pessoal! I hope everyone is having a great week! Friends, if you’re not paying attention to the Digital Real project and not understanding what’s going on here, you really need to be. To make that task easier for you, I’ve been putting together a series of interviews gathering different perspectives on this subject. Last week I hosted Gustavo Cunha on the pod to discuss the mechanics of how th...

Olá pessoal! Today, Mauricio Magaldi of Blockchain Insider joins the podcast to discuss his predictions for the Brazil crypto ecosystem in 2023. The last time Maurício’s came on the BCR podcast last June, he had just joined 11:FS, the London-based financial services consultancy, as Global Strategy Director. He gives us an update on his new gig and his insider point-of-view on how financial institu...

Boa tarde pessoal! The Brazilian Central Bank announced its Digital Real pilot on March 6, marking a milestone in the CBDC’s development. I asked Gustavo Cunha to come on the show to help us understand the state of the project and its roadmap. Gustavo has a wealth of knowledge in the realm of stablecoins and central bank digital currencies, and was a great resource to help me understand what makes...

Olá pessoal! Portal do Bitcoin reporter Fernando Martines joins the podcast (available on Spotify ) 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...

E aí pessoal? I’m excited to share the latest BCR podcast recording with João Marco Braga da Cunha , who is a Brazilian economist and portfolio manager with Hashdex, Brazil's largest crypto asset manager. In this episode, we discuss a proposal that was shared recently by Brazilian and Argentine leaders about creating a shared currency between the two countries. The idea is that this could further...

Olá pessoal! Welcome to Season 2 of the Brazil Crypto Report podcast, which is now officially live on YouTube ! (can also listen on Spotify !) In this special episode I talk with two of the industry’s top lobbyists in Brazil: Karen Duque of Bitso and Julien Dutra of 2TM/Mercado Bitcoin. ( P.S. subscribes/likes/shares of the video and channel are much appreciated!) Both are seasoned tech policy pro...

Ola pessoal! Axel Blikstad is a founding partner of BLP Crypto, Brazil’s oldest crypto fund manager. He is also a two decade veteran of traditional finance with stints at Santander, Banco Garantia and Banco Pactual. In this episode we discuss the ramifications of the FTX collapse on the Brazil crypto ecosystem and how he was able to liquidate his FTT position before the collapse.  I really enjoyed...

Ola pessoal! The collapse of FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried continue to send shockwaves across crypto markets and, sadly, it seems that there will be more bad news coming before things turn around In this episode I am joined by Andre Franco to discuss the ramifications of these events for Brazil’s emerging crypto ecosystem. Andre is the head of research at Mercado Bitcoin and host of the Fr...

Ola Pessoal! Regulatory clarity around digital asset taxonomy and treatment, particularly the question of when a token is and is not a security, has been the Holy Grail of crypto for years now. Therefore, it’s a big deal any time a securities regulator issues any sort of guidance or opinion on this question. I invited Isac Costa back to the podcast to discuss the crypto asset guidance issued last...

Boa tarde pessoal! In this episode, recorded at the Blockchain Rio Festival, I talk to Marcello Mari - CEO of SingularityDAO . SingularityDAO 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 t...

Boa noite pessoal! I had the chance to sit down with Nodle co-founder Garrett Kinsman at Blockchain Rio last month to discuss his smartphone powered network and why he sees Brazil as a key market. Nodle is 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 ru...

Ola pessoal! 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...

Ola pessoal! For this latest episode I spoke with Bobby Ong, who 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. CoinGecko’s position in the market gives Bobby an incredible bird’s eye view of emerging trends across the industry, and he lends us some of that expertise and insight during...

🎧 Spotify Bom dia pessoal, Maxim Piessen is the chief technology officer 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 f...

Hi everyone, 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. Renata and I discuss how Paxful's platform operates, how it's providing financial opportunities to un...

Ola pessoal! Today’s episode is with Mila Rioja who is Latam lead at Celo Foundation. 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 adoptio...

Fala pessoal! In this episode I’m joined again by Conor Brady, head of Ethereum Brasil, who is the organizer for Ethereum São Paulo event happening September 9-11. 🎉Conor is also my first-ever repeat guest for this podcast so congratulations to him on that feat. 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...

Fala pessoal! 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. OSL provides liquidity services to many o...

Fala pessoal! Crypto legislation has been the predominant theme of the Brazil crypto scene this year. This bill was expected to be approved by Congress and signed into law earlier this summer, but it stalled amid disagreements over key provisions like reporting timeframes and asset segregation rules. TLDR is that with upcoming elections, the outlook for this bill passing this year is murky at best...

Fala pessoal! I’m super excited to attend and speak at the Blockchain Rio festival which runs September 1-4! So to get a sneak preview of what’s in store at the event, I invited Blockchain Rio chief marketing officer Tatiana Sampaio onto the show to chat about what’s in store for what’s being billed as Latin America's largest blockchain event. We discuss the content themes and structure, the side...

Fala pessoal! This week I had the pleasure of interviewing Brazilian UFC fighters Matheus Nicolau and Luana Pinheiro, who’ve 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 straww...

You can listen to this episode on Spotify here Fala pessoal! In today’s conversation I am joined by Sabrina Tachdjian who looks after 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 exci...

Fala pessoal! Brazil is widely assumed to be an unfavorable geography to mine bitcoin because of taxes, energy costs and bureaucracy, even as neighboring countries Argentina and Paraguay have seen growing interest from international operators. But that dynamic could soon be changing due to various factors, including legislative proposals to exempt bitcoin mining hardware from import taxes and larg...