Blockchain.RIO Establishes Rio as a Global Stage for Financial Innovation

The Blockchain Rio Week 2026 began this Tuesday, August 11, in Rio de Janeiro, with a day entirely dedicated to the institutional layer of the sector --- regulators, central banks, market associations, and major financial institutions, before the opening of the main event to a broader audience.

The day's agenda featured two central moments: the Financial Infrastructure Forum -- LATAM, presented by Cainvest, held at the Museum of Tomorrow from 2 PM to 6 PM, and the Blockchain Leaders, a more exclusive executive meeting at Casa Camolese, at the Jockey Club of Gávea, from 7 PM to 11 PM.

Both meetings are part of the Blockchain Rio Week 2026, which runs until August 13 and culminates in the main event, Blockchain.RIO, on August 12 and 13, at ExpoRio, in Cidade Nova.

This is the fifth edition of Blockchain.RIO, created in 2022 by Francisco Carvalho, and today it is the largest blockchain and digital assets event in Latin America --- the 2025 edition gathered around 15,000 visitors, 400 speakers, and 100 sponsors, and the organization projects even larger numbers for 2026, with over 500 speakers, more than 150 sponsors and supporters, and over 200 content sessions including tracks, panels, and lectures.

According to Francisco Carvalho, CEO of Blockchain.RIO, the creation of the Financial Infrastructure Forum -- LATAM as a separate front from the Leaders and the main event is a sign that "the market has matured" and has moved from a phase of evangelization to a phase of implementation, regulation, and institutionalization.

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Financial Infrastructure Forum -- LATAM: the debut of the new institutional front

The Financial Infrastructure Forum was born as a unique initiative of this edition, designed to bring together, in a closed and highly curated environment, central banks, securities regulators, financial market associations, banks, and payment infrastructure providers.

The forum's declared purpose is to discuss the topics that will shape the next phase of financial markets: asset tokenization, stablecoins, cross-border payments, digital market infrastructure, interoperable payment systems, and regulatory convergence in Latin America.

The event gathers representatives from institutions such as the Central Bank of Brazil, CVM, ANBIMA, Central Bank of Uruguay, Central Bank of Chile, Central Reserve Bank of Peru, the National Commission of Digital Assets of El Salvador (CNAD), the Superintendence of the Securities Market of Peru, and the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre. It was on this stage that the two most impactful regulatory speeches of the day took place: one from the Central Bank regarding staking and another from ANBIMA about its tokenization sandbox.

Central Bank Prepares New Round of Rules for Staking

During the opening of the forum, Nagel Paulino, Head of Unit at the Central Bank of Brazil, announced that the authority is preparing a new phase of regulation for staking operations in the virtual asset market --- specifically for the staking as a service model, where a company executes or enables staking on behalf of the client.

Staking already has basic obligations defined by Resolution BCB No. 520, in effect since February 2026, which requires transparency regarding risks of asset loss, volatility during redemption, deadlines, and reward methods.

According to Paulino, the Central Bank chose not to advance on all fronts simultaneously because it prioritized the authorization process for virtual asset companies first --- and is only now moving to a stage of more specific "calibrations" regarding the service. He did not provide a timeline or detail the regulatory instrument that will be used, but confirmed that the market has already made contributions on the topic.

What is Already in Effect Today

It is worth noting that staking, contrary to what Paulino's statement might suggest at first glance, is not a market today without any rules. The current framework was published on November 10, 2025, after public consultations conducted by the Central Bank, and is based on three main regulations:

• Resolution BCB No. 519 --- addresses the authorization processes for virtual asset service providers;
• Resolution BCB No. 520 --- regulates the establishment and operation of these providers and is the regulation that recognizes staking as a permitted activity;
• Resolution BCB No. 521 --- classifies certain operations with virtual assets in the foreign exchange market.

Resolution 520 defines staking as the blocking of the client's assets by the provider to participate in the validation of transactions on networks that use proof of stake, with the possibility of reward.

Article 71 of the regulation already requires the provider to clearly inform the client: the risk of asset loss due to operational failures in validation; the risk of volatility during the redemption period; market and liquidity risks while the assets are immobilized; the deadlines and conditions for redemption; and the reward method for the operation. The contract must also explain under what conditions the company can stake the client's assets, how authorization works, and what the limits and deadlines for the operation are.

In other words, the "new stage" announced by Paulino does not create the regulatory framework for staking from scratch --- it complements a foundation that already addresses consumer information, contracts, custody, and risks, adjusting more specific points of the service, especially in the as a service model.

Why Staking as a Service Requires Its Own Rules

Staking is part of the operation of networks that use the proof of stake consensus mechanism: instead of mining, these networks select validators who put assets at stake to verify transactions and, in some cases, propose new blocks, receiving rewards in return.

Improper conduct by the validator can lead to penalties and even loss of part of the assets --- a mechanism known as slashing.

In the as a service model, the client does not need to operate all the technical infrastructure of a validator: a provider performs this function or facilitates access to the service on their behalf. This creates an additional layer of relationship, which adds to the risks of the network itself other issues --- custody, authorization to move or block assets, hiring third parties, exit timelines, division of rewards, and liability for failures.

It is precisely this layer that the Central Bank (BC) wants to calibrate more accurately. Paulino stated that the BC has already received feedback from the market on the topic and maintains a work track to assess the convergence between the general regulation of virtual assets and the specific treatment of staking as a service, without detailing the nature of these contributions.

The Gap in Asset Issuance

Paulino also pointed out a regulatory frontier that goes beyond staking: the issuance of certain assets. According to him, the first stage of Brazilian regulation focused on service providers and the chain of intermediation and custody --- when the topic shifts to the issuance of the asset itself, the BC understands that more specific legal competence may be necessary before regulating all elements of the product.

The available excerpt of his speech does not allow for the safe identification of all classes of assets mentioned at this point, so it is not possible to attribute the statement exclusively to stablecoins or another specific type of token --- but it was clear that part of this agenda depends on law and dialogue between the BC, the market, and Congress.

Regulatory Structure and Cybersecurity

In reconstructing the recent trajectory of the BC, Paulino cited the segmentation and operational norms of service providers, the foreign exchange market rules, and the authorization discipline.

All this structure derives from Law No. 14,478/2022 --- the legal framework for virtual assets, which determined that virtual asset service providers depend on federal authorization --- and Decree No. 11,563/2023, which assigned the Central Bank the competence to regulate, authorize, and supervise these companies, preserving the CVM's responsibilities over tokens that are securities. Within this perimeter, the BC created three types of providers: intermediaries, custodians, and virtual asset brokers --- the latter authorized to combine intermediation and custody ---, following the principle of aligning regulatory requirements with the actual risk assumed by each activity.

Paulino stated that the BC leveraged the experience accumulated with payment institutions and credit fintechs to design the authorization process for virtual asset providers, incorporating governance requirements, internal controls, designation of responsible directors, and specific policies --- with a regulatory burden proportional, and not equivalent to that applied to large banks.

In his assessment, the main challenge lies in transforming small, technology-intensive companies, often created around a single product, into institutions prepared to operate within the financial system — which requires strengthening compliance, revising business models, and correcting operational vulnerabilities.

Cybersecurity emerged as a critical point: the Central Bank created technical certification requirements as an additional scrutiny step before authorization, so that companies approach the regulator with minimum operational conditions, even if they are not yet fully mature.

Paulino acknowledged that the process imposes difficulties on the sector, describing it as an "intense regulatory burden for a relatively short period" — but argued that this diligence is necessary for companies to navigate their most vulnerable period and enter the market with a regulated identity.

ANBIMA Reveals Tokenization Sandbox with 20 Use Cases

Also at the Financial Infrastructure Forum, Erika Lacreta, Executive Manager of Capital Markets at ANBIMA, presented two fronts that the association is pursuing in parallel: a new testing infrastructure for the capital markets and the transformation of its experimental guidelines for virtual assets into effective self-regulation, with supervision from participating institutions.

Lacreta opened her speech highlighting that technology has ceased to be merely operational support to occupy a central position in financial infrastructure, reshaping businesses and the very way of thinking about the functioning of capital markets. According to her, the internet, blockchain, and DLT already support different stages of the market today, and the challenge now is to understand whether a distributed structure can preserve the efficiency and controls of the traditional model.

The Tokenization Sandbox: Debentures and Closed Network Funds

The entity selected 20 use cases for a pilot tokenization project — a private sandbox running on a distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based network, simulating debentures and investment funds. It is a closed environment, without investors or real financial resources, created to measure potential operational gains and verify whether tokenization reduces steps and improves the tracking of operations.

The 20 cases are divided among debentures, investment funds, and experiences that combine the two instruments:

• Debentures — the test begins with the creation of the security directly in the tokenized infrastructure (natively tokenized issuance), tracking the entire lifecycle of the asset within the network, with the necessary controls.
• Investment Funds — the experience goes beyond the digital representation of shares: it includes management processes, operational rules, and automations executed by smart contracts. ANBIMA wants to understand how this works and then test the interconnection between the two sides — asset and fund — operating on the same network.

According to Lacreta, the choice of a restricted and controlled infrastructure allows for observing operations without exposing investors or institutions to financial risks during the experimentation phase. The ultimate goal is to identify the generated efficiency and ensure that there is a concrete benefit for all participants — legal and regulatory security, operational efficiency, and real gains for the market.

In addition to operational gains, ANBIMA is assessing whether tokenization can broaden investor access to capital markets: the thesis is that automation, asset fractionalization, and cost reduction would allow for investments with smaller tickets, "democratizing" the market. The benefits, according to the executive, would not be limited to investors—issuers could incur lower expenses, and regulators would gain new monitoring tools and more information.

Experimental Self-Regulation: The Focus is Custody

Alongside the sandbox, ANBIMA is developing its self-regulation agenda for digital and virtual assets—a front with a different scope: while the pilot tests the infrastructure of the capital market, self-regulation begins with custody practices, which Lacreta referred to as "the heart of this process."

The first phase is experimental in nature and aims to monitor associated institutions during the implementation of the new regulation from the Central Bank, jointly identifying what can still be improved before evolving into effective self-regulation, with effective supervision as well.

The association also maintains a working group dedicated to digital and virtual assets, tasked with considering how the market can evolve into an increasingly digital environment—this includes managing the coexistence, which should last for some time, between traditional systems and new digital infrastructures.

There is also a broader innovation network that brings together not only associates but different societal participants interested in the development of these solutions.

Dialogue with CVM and the Separate Chapter on Stablecoins

Lacreta mentioned the creation of a working group on tokenization by the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM)—reinforcing that, in the capital market, CVM is ANBIMA's reference regulator—and also mentioned ongoing discussions about expanding offerings made by crowdfunding platforms, including a public hearing on the topic, due to its significant synergy with tokenization.

According to her, ANBIMA has participated in these discussions and supported CVM in the regulatory process.

In the end, Lacreta acknowledged that there are still relevant regulatory and operational challenges ahead—among them, stablecoins, digital assets designed to maintain parity with currencies or other reference assets, which she classified as "a separate chapter" within this broader discussion.

Fenasbac Calls for Faster Regulatory Sandboxes

Rodrigo Henriques, Director of Innovation and Strategy at Fenasbac (National Federation of Central Bank Employees Associations), brought a more critical tone to the panel.

For him, the debate on blockchain has entered a new stage: the technology has already proven its possibilities, the market and regulators have understood what it can do, and the discussion now needs to focus on infrastructure, services provided, and the rules that support these solutions.

He cited the experience of El Salvador as an example of how to transform technological infrastructure into services that effectively reach the end user.

Henriques argued that no financial infrastructure exists without a technological base and service provision—but it also does not exist without regulation, which establishes limits, responsibilities, and operating conditions.

Without this, he argued, the discussion becomes "empty" or disconnected from a specific geography, even though the sector likes to imagine solutions that work globally, regardless of each country's regulations. For him, a truly global solution must be able to operate under different legislations and supervision models --- one of the topics on which, according to him, Fenasbac has been working for ten years, in partnership with the Central Bank and, more recently, also with ANBIMA through self-regulation.

He presented LIFT, an innovation ecosystem coordinated by Fenasbac and the Central Bank, as a space where new solutions can be tested before the regulation is fully defined --- which, in his view, does not exclude regulation but facilitates the process, since every country operating with a regulatory sandbox understands the importance of flexibility while new solutions are tested and put into operation.

His main criticism, however, was about the speed of the Brazilian regulatory sandbox model. According to him, Brazil received applications and projects in its regulatory sandbox but failed to open new cycles at the speed required by technological evolution --- there is a difficulty in the response time. If a company spends two years within a sandbox, then needs to renew for another two years and only then see the regulation adjusted to what was tested, the process ends up taking too long.

The risk, for Henriques, is that technology, the market, or the business model itself may change before the experience produces a regulatory response --- a problem exacerbated by the fact that companies already have capital invested and mobilized while awaiting this response.

In the evening: Blockchain Leaders at Casa Camolese

After the institutional forum at the Museum of Tomorrow, the program continued in the evening with Blockchain Leaders, from 7 PM to 11 PM, at Casa Camolese, at the Jockey Club da Gávea --- under the concept "Where Traditional Finance Meets Digital Assets".

Unlike the Forum, which has a more regulatory profile, Leaders is a more reserved executive meeting focused on strategic relationships among C-level executives, representatives of financial institutions, investors, regulators, and infrastructure providers.

The 2026 edition has Binance as the master sponsor. Among the Diamond sponsors are CertiK, Cardano Foundation, OranjeBTC, Ripio, Stellar Development Foundation, and Chainalysis; in the Platinum category are Ondo Finance, Ripple, XDC Network, Oxus Finance, Truther by Rezolve.AI, and Crypto Finance --- a composition that brings together exchanges, blockchain networks, security and intelligence companies in blockchain, financial platforms, and institutional infrastructure organizations in the sector.

The evening's content program included:

• Guilherme Gomes, CEO of OranjeBTC --- "Bitcoin as Institutional Financial Infrastructure", discussing the role of Bitcoin in institutional financial infrastructure.
• Guido Messi, from Ripio --- "Stablecoins 2026, a new frontier", at 8:40 PM, about the growing space of stablecoins in payments, settlement, and international resource movement.
• Federico Gomez Schumacher, from Stellar Development Foundation --- "Tokenization is Easy, Distribution is Hard", shifting the debate from creating tokenized assets to the more difficult challenge of distributing them.
• Drey Dias, from Chainalysis --- closing the content program with an analysis of compliance and trust in the Brazilian digital assets market.

One of the striking features of this year's institutional programming --- both at the Forum and the Leaders --- is the simultaneous presence of regulators from various countries in Latin America and beyond.

In addition to the Brazilian Central Bank and the CVM, and ANBIMA, the week brings together names from the central banks of Uruguay, Chile, and Peru, the Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores of Peru, the BIS Innovation Hub in Hong Kong, the Dubai Financial Services Authority, and the National Digital Assets Commission of El Salvador (CNAD) --- whose president, Juan Carlos Reyes, is a recurring presence at Blockchain Rio and has been advocating, at other industry events in Latin America this year, for the creation of regulators dedicated exclusively to digital assets, outside the traditional structure of central banks and securities commissions.

On the side of the Brazilian private market, the week also confirms the presence of executives from Itaú, Bradesco, Santander, and Inter, as well as BTG Pactual --- institutions that have been testing asset tokenization projects, such as debentures and funds, in partnership with ANBIMA itself.

What’s next: August 12 and 13 at ExpoRio

Following the institutional day, Blockchain Rio Week continues on August 12 and 13 with the main event, at ExpoRio, in Cidade Nova. This is the most public-facing part of the week, structured into 13 content tracks that expand the understanding of how blockchain, digital assets, artificial intelligence, stablecoins, open infrastructure, and new financial architectures have moved from niche discussions to the center of the business, technology, and economic development agenda in Brazil and Latin America.

Among the confirmed topics in the tracks are:

• Global Finance --- evolution of digital payments and international transactions driven by stablecoins;
• Regulation Rocks --- challenges of modernizing the financial system and bridging innovation with legal security;
• Tokenization and Real World Assets (RWA);
• Stablecoins and global payments;
• Banking infrastructure and institutional digital assets;
• DeFi and cryptocurrencies;
• Artificial intelligence and open code as accelerators of innovation in the sector;
• CRIA, focused on regulatory sandboxes and innovation;
• the new Blockchain Forum Academia x Industry, created in this edition to bring researchers and companies closer and stimulate knowledge transfer between universities and the market.

The programming for the two days is expected to feature names such as Gabriel Galípolo, president of the Central Bank of Brazil; Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink; Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks; as well as executives from Coinbase, Binance, Circle, Bybit, and representatives from the CVM, the Federal Public Ministry, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) --- reinforcing the institutional character that has come to mark this edition of Blockchain.RIO.