Bits and Borders

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 to becoming a full-on crypto degen, podcast host and influencer in the Brazil crypto space. Mauricio discusses his involvement in the upcoming Blockchain Rio conference, and shares his views on why the crypto legislation working through the Brazilian Congress may be harmful to innovation in the country if the needs of startups aren't taken into account. 

Note: this is a crossover episode! Mauricio and I record an episode in Portuguese so be sure to check that out on his channel! 

Link to BlockDrops podcast here 

Twitter: @blockdropspod

Linkedin: @magaldi

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🙏 Thanks to our partners at HBAR Foundation for supporting 🇧🇷 Brazil Crypto Report! If you're a Latam entrepreneur or developer with an up-and-coming project or idea and need some support, take a look at the HBAR grant program. They're seeding projects focused on DeFi, fintech, NFTs, sustainability and so much more. They also offer a plethora of other resources to help builders bootstrap. Do yourself a favor and check them out! 👊

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. 

Conor is doing incredible work to help bootstrap the Brazilian crypto and Web3 ecosystem, so I would encourage everyone to follow and support what he's doing with Ethereum Brasil.  

I enjoyed this conversation with Conor (especially as a fellow gringo with an interest in the Brazil ecosystem) and I hope you do as well. 

Website: https://www.ethereumbrasil.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ethereum_Brasil

Discord: https://discord.gg/vcu8snrpG8

Please follow and subscribe to Brazil Crypto Report for more news, analysis and interviews looking at the Brazil crypto ecosystem

🙏 Thanks to our partners at HBAR Foundation for supporting 🇧🇷 Brazil Crypto Report! If you're a Latam entrepreneur or developer with an up-and-coming project or idea and need some support, take a look at the HBAR grant program. They're seeding projects focused on DeFi, fintech, NFTs, sustainability and so much more. They also offer a plethora of other resources to help builders bootstrap. Do yourself a favor and check them out! 👊

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 pipeline for companies new and old to source new talent in the Latam region is critical infrastructure. On the other side of the coin, students and digitally-native young people in the region are hungry to get into this fast-growing industry. 

Zé and I discuss how the Crypto Jr enterprise is bringing new talent into crypto and Web3 in Brazil, as well as how companies and protocols looking to expand their presence in Latam can go about sourcing and developing talent. 

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🙏 Thanks to our partners at HBAR Foundation for supporting 🇧🇷 Brazil Crypto Report! If you're a Latam entrepreneur or developer with an up-and-coming project or idea and need some support, take a look at the HBAR grant program. They're seeding projects focused on DeFi, fintech, NFTs, sustainability and so much more. They also offer a plethora of other resources to help builders bootstrap. Do yourself a favor and check them out! 👊

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 and how pending legislation figures to bring additional stability to the ecosystem.

We touch on the unique challenges of covering Brazil vis-a-vis other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries like El Salvador, Argentina, Colombia and others

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Follow Kristin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/k_majch

🙏 Thanks to our partners at HBAR Foundation for supporting 🇧🇷 Brazil Crypto Report! If you're a Latam entrepreneur or developer with an up-and-coming project or idea and need some support, take a look at the HBAR grant program. They're seeding projects focused on DeFi, fintech, NFTs, sustainability and so much more. They also offer a plethora of other resources to help builders bootstrap. Do yourself a favor and check them out! 👊

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. 

Subscribe to the Brazil Crypto Report newsletter for more news and commentary on Latam's hottest market https://brazilcrypto.substack.com/

Andres' CoinDesk author page can be found here. You can follow Andrés on Twitter at @andresengler 

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. 

Subscribe to the Brazil Crypto Report newsletter for free at https://brazilcrypto.substack.com/ 

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://brazilcrypto.report/

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, Coinbase's reported plans to acquire 2TM and Mercado Bitcoin and the state of crypto legislation in the Brazilian Congress. 

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 explosive growth. He joins us to share his thoughts on the current state of the Brazil crypto market and beyond.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. As always, thank you for reading, listening to and supporting Brazil Crypto Report!

Be sure to subscribe to Brazil Crypto Report to stay up to speed on this important crypto market