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- Brazil and Hong Kong central banks successfully pilot a cross-border CBDC trade finance platform using Chainlink’s interoperability protocols.
- Blockchain Summit Latam 2025 to feature real-world tokenization labs with central banks and major financial institutions participating.
A joint assessment by the monetary authorities of Brazil and Hong Kong has validated a practical use case for blockchain technology in international commerce. The project, which involved a cross-border trade finance platform run by Brazilian digital bank Banco Inter, was conducted under the supervision of the Central Bank of Brazil and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Its objective was to evaluate how distributed ledger technology could enhance the efficiency and security of settlement operations for both exports and imports. The assessment recreated the end-to-end sequence of an export transaction between two independent digital financial infrastructures.
This technical exercise constitutes a component of Phase 2 within Brazil’s Drex project, the national central bank digital currency undertaking. The simulation created a digital corridor connecting Brazil’s Drex network with the Ensemble platform from Hong Kong, a blockchain framework developed under the HKMA’s Project Ensemble.
Interoperability for linking these two separate networks was achieved using protocols from the infrastructure provider Chainlink. The established connection facilitated the testing of a coordinated settlement mechanism that utilized tokenized assets, suggesting a potential transition from traditional, step-by-step trade finance practices.
Technical Mechanisms and Key Participants in the Pilot Test
The domain of trade finance includes the credit arrangements and payment systems that allow importers and exporters to engage in business internationally. This field has traditionally been viewed as operationally complex and reliant on manual intervention.
The joint Brazil-Hong Kong pilot confronted these issues head-on through the deployment of smart contracts. These automated programs executed the trade’s agreed-upon terms, ensuring the payment was synchronized with the handover of ownership documents.
The global financial services group Standard Chartered also participated in the pilot, lending its broad knowledge of international financial markets. The partnership between Banco Inter and Chainlink is not new, as the two organizations have previously worked together on earlier phases of the Drex initiative.
The Brazilian Context: The Acceleration of the Digital Real and Stablecoin Adoption
This cross-border initiative aligns with a phase of heightened focus on digital currency by the Central Bank of Brazil. Development work on the digital real pilot has progressed at a faster pace throughout the last twelve months. The institution’s aim is to create a synthetic digital currency incorporating programmability, privacy controls, and a measure of managed decentralization.
The Brazilian market has experienced considerable expansion in stablecoin usage. Central Bank of Brazil President Gabriel Galípolo provided a specific metric for this trend at a February conference, revealing that around 90% of all cryptocurrency transactions in Brazil use stablecoins. These digital assets maintain a fixed value tied to traditional currencies such as the US dollar.
Although the Drex project is frequently categorized as a central bank digital currency, Galípolo has presented a more detailed interpretation. He frames Drex principally as a financial infrastructure initiative. Its essential function is to broaden credit availability for individuals and companies while updating the national financial architecture.
Blockchain Summit Latam 2025: The Meeting Point for Digital Financial Infrastructure
The practical advancements seen in Brazil and discussions happening across Latin America will find a central forum for analysis later this year. The Blockchain Summit Latam 2025 is scheduled for November 12 to 14 at EAFIT University in Medellín, Colombia. The event establishes itself as a primary gathering for the entities involved in constructing the digital financial infrastructure for the region.
The congress agenda will assemble a diverse group of more than 70 speakers from regulatory bodies and private corporations. Confirmed participants include representatives from the Banco de la República de Colombia, the Central Bank of Brazil presenting its Drex Project, and Chile’s Comisión para el Mercado Financiero. The private sector will be represented by executives from companies such as Binance, Tether, Circle, Ripple, BBVA, and BTG Pactual.
A distinctive feature of BSL 2025 will be the introduction of a “Financial Lab.” This space is conceived as a practical laboratory where banks and fintech companies can conduct tests on real-world use cases. These workshops will concentrate on practical applications for asset tokenization, cross-border payment systems, and the incorporation of stablecoins into institutional trading environments.
Rodrigo Sainz, CEO and founder of Blockchain Summit Latam, explained the objective for this year’s event. The goal is to show that tokenization has moved beyond being a technological promise and is now forming the foundation of new infrastructure for the global financial system. Sainz added that Latin America possesses an opportunity to lead this structural change.
With an anticipated daily attendance of over 1,000 people, the event acts as a conduit connecting the traditional regulated financial world with the crypto-financial sector.
