All news is rigorously fact-checked and reviewed by leading blockchain experts and seasoned industry insiders.
- Chainlink has teamed up with Plexos Institute and EDinheiro to bring tokenized social currencies to communities in Brazil.
- Chainlink is already providing interoperability and transparency tools, like Proof of Reserve and CCIP, to DeFi platforms globally.
Brazil is one of the most active cryptocurrency and tokenization markets in Latin America, with millions of users actively trading Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins. Many Brazilians use crypto as a hedge against inflation, for remittances, and as an alternative investment.
Adoption is only accelerating, especially with big moves like Chainlink’s partnership with the Plexos Institute and the EDinheiro platform.
Together, they’re working to expand financial access for underserved communities by supporting blockchain-based social currencies.
Plexos, a nonprofit focused on social innovation and community-driven economic development, and EDinheiro, a digital banking platform that enables municipalities to issue their own local currencies, are showing how crypto can drive real-world impact far beyond speculation.
Why Chainlink, EDinheiro & Plexos?
Launching in the coastal municipality of Indiaroba, Sergipe, the project introduces Aratu, a local currency designed to stimulate economic growth and support social welfare programs.
In a community of about 18,000 people, many of whom are marisqueiras (shellfish gatherers), Aratu offers a trusted medium for distributing aid and encouraging local commerce and cooperation.
Plexos Institute will act as the innovation hub guiding this effort, while EDinheiro brings its proven platform, already supporting over 180 social currencies across Brazil, to the table. Now, together with Chainlink, they’re building a transparent, blockchain-powered version of EDinheiro designed to put community action and autonomy front and center.
As part of the deal, Chainlink brings critical infrastructure through the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE). This is its secure layer that connects public blockchains, private ledgers, and existing municipal systems. This allows automated, auditable processes covering community reporting, expenditure tracking, and compliance with Brazil’s data protection law (LGPD).
In practice, this means every Aratu currency transaction becomes transparent, encrypted, and verifiable, helping ensure that funds reach the intended recipients and remain traceable across the network.
Aratu will become the first social currency in Brazil issued and maintained entirely on blockchain. While Brazil has seen over 182 active community currencies facilitating everyday trade, this marks the very first time one will run on chain, a milestone for responsible tech in the public interest.
The initiative aims to scale beyond Indiaroba, with the potential to replicate in other regions needing financial infrastructure that’s both modern and locally controlled.
Brazil is quickly becoming one of the most crypto-friendly places in the world. In 2023, the country tokenized over $4 billion worth of government bonds on blockchain, allowing everyday people to buy small fractions instead of needing huge sums of money.
Even traditional finance is on board, with Brazil’s biggest stock exchange, B3, offering Ethereum and Solana futures and shrinking Bitcoin futures contracts to just 0.01 BTC so more retail investors can join in.
To push things forward, VERT, a Brazilian fund management and securitization firm, rolled out a blockchain-based solution on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) to modernize agribusiness credit processes. It’s first major move? Tokenizing a BRL 700 million (~$130 million) Agribusiness Receivables Certificate (CRA), marking a big step toward modernizing Brazil’s agricultural finance sector.
