Tech Roundup: Brazil's closer to its own digital currency

Feb 11, 2022 13:36 7 min read

This week. Five-year-old Brazilian is the youngest person in the world to discover an asteroid. Brazil is world’s fifth-biggest consumer of online piracy. Central Bank’s latest step towards a digital currency.

Central Bank takes next step towards ‘digital Real’

Brazil is moving closer to having its own central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC). Friday is the last day for signups to the LIFT Challenge Real Digital, an innovation lab seeking to source practical and feasible projects to implement a virtual version of Brazil’s currency.

Why it matters. Among other mechanisms, central banks seek national sovereignty through their monopoly over issuing...

Tech Roundup: Brazil’s closer to its own digital currency

Brazil is moving closer to having its own central bank-issued digital currency (CBDC)

Central Bank takes next step towards ‘digital Real’

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States ask Brazilians to wear masks again, as cases soar

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Market roundup: Brazil’s debt costs continue to balloon

High inflation and the world’s steepest monetary tightening process have increased pressure on Brazil’s public debt

Bank account ownership grew more in Latin America than in any other global region

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What Elon Musk wants from Brazil

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Tech Roundup: Government fails to set an example on data protection

The Brazilian government has been lackadaisical in adopting data protection protocols in government agencies

Latin American research is in Google and Microsoft servers. That is a problem

With the pandemic, education institutions moved online en masse and started using ostensibly free systems provided by big tech companies. But not enough questions are being asked about data protection

Tech Roundup: Ten years of the Access to Information Law

Experts warn that Bolsonaro is chipping away and the effectiveness of the Access to Information Law, a crucial piece of Brazil's transparency structure

Supreme Court to rule on its access to social media data

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Tech Roundup: Chip shortage delays 5G

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Explaining Brazil #204: A second swing at Bolsonaro

The opposition failed to remove Bolsonaro from office with last year's Covid hearings. They want a new congressional investigation to hurt him at the ballot box

Explaining Brazil #203: The president v. Petrobras

While the price of gas isn't exactly the best metric to understand the economy at large, the ubiquity of fuel and its direct impact on people's monthly budgets make it an easy shorthand for the broader economic scenario — especially when prices are going up

Explaining Brazil #202: Where are Dom and Bruno?

It has been 11 days since journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were reported missing. The police are yet to find the two

Explaining Brazil #201: Is the Monroe doctrine dead?

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Explaining Brazil #200: Hunger haunts Brazil again

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Data corroborates fears about growing lawlessness in the Brazilian Amazon

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The (Danish) father of Brazilian paleontology

Peter Lund spent the majority of his life living in Brazil, helping lay the foundations for paleontology and archeology in the country. He also discovered the remains of the oldest hominid in Latin America

How Brazil’s far-right tries to muffle discussions about the Dom Phillips-Bruno Pereira murder

Far-right netizens are pushing online content about the legend of a long-lost Amazon civilization as a way of drowning out news of the murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira, which have reflected negatively on the Bolsonaro government

Exclusive: Brazilian government ignored warnings about “imminent dangers” at Vale do Javari

Journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira went missing ten days ago in the Vale do Javari reserve. The government was warned about the lawlessness in the region at least four times

Confusion over Amazon disappearances as Brazilian diplomacy relays misinformation

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Unknowingly, Brazilians are big consumers of shark meat. That is a problem

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The future of Amazon journalism after British reporter’s brutal murder

The murders of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira in a remote area of the western Amazon have drawn attention to the criminal dynamics at play in the rainforest and highlight the challenges and risks of carrying out reporting there

The Belo Monte Dam is killing the Amazon’s ‘house of God’

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The tensions within the Amazon’s Vale do Javari reserve

A journalist and an on-leave government official have disappeared in a massive reserve coveted by wildcat miners, illegal fishermen, and drug gangs

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