On October 3, 2024, in Brazil, Roberto Campos Neto, president of Banco Central do Brasil, announced the country's initiative to integrate decentralized finance (DeFi) principles into its central bank digital currency (CBDC), named Drex. This move aims to tackle the challenges of decentralization, privacy, and programmability in traditional finance.
Neto emphasized the necessity of a multidimensional CBDC that incorporates tokenization into the banks' balance sheets. The Brazilian central bank plans to accelerate its tokenization efforts through an Open Finance platform, which will create a competitive marketplace for banking and payment options, including CBDCs.
The pilot program for Drex is currently in its second phase, focusing on digital asset transactions such as liquidity pools for government bonds and international trade finance, with expectations to continue into 2025. Additionally, on the same day, Ripple announced a partnership with Mercado Bitcoin to enhance cross-border crypto payments for Brazilian businesses, enabling faster and more efficient transactions.