Author: https://twitter.com/guiribabrb
Original article: https://odysee.com/@ShapeShiftDAObr:a/defi-no-brasil-2021:9

###### tags: `EN-TheSmith's-Collection`
# Brazil towards decentralization
It is unclear at what place, date and time the Decentralized Finance sector popped up. And even if ground zero existed, it would not make sense in the crypto universe. DeFi did not come out of the blue: it is a positive consequence from years of development of codes, especially at the Ethereum smart contracts, pioneers in making their blockchain available to be used as infrastructure for creating decentralized applications.


Even without having exact knowledge, it is a fact that Decentralized Finance has more active communities in foreign countries. The main DeFi protocols are based on communities on Discord and Telegram mostly literate in English, with, sometimes, separate chats in Portuguese for a few Brazilians who venture into this universe.

Despite this linguistic preponderance of English in communities, according to a survey by Chainalysis, [Brazil ranks among the second country in Latin America with the highest adoption in DeFi and the 17th in the world](https://www.criptofacil.com/argentina-e-brasil-lideram-uso-de-defi-na-america-latina-revela-relatorio/). This means that, although the Portuguese language isn’t common, the Brazilian population has sought to understand and interact with the universe of Decentralized Finance.

The emergence of Brazilian projects, although punctual, demonstrate the beginning of the development of national protocols. Even being from Brazil or having brazilians in their teams, the exact measurement of national decentralized applications is difficult to measure: lots of teams of developers are anonymous, aiming to avoid retaliation from regulatory bodies or even maintaining the privacy and security of the protocol maintainers.

However, there are already innovative brazilian projects in DeFi and I brought here three interesting projects:

## **Pods Finance**


[Pods](https://app.pods.finance/) is a decentralized options protocol, offering users the possibility to hedge their cryptoassets. The hedge has the function of protecting investors from volatility in their assets that cause losses to their portfolios.

The [options market](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/option.asp) is a well-known figure in the financial market and used in Brazil. In a simple way, this is composed of *calls* – right to buy an asset – and *put* – right to sell an asset. Upon acquiring a *call*, the investor obtains the right to buy the asset at a future time for a pre-established price, protecting him from acquiring it more expensive. In contrast, when a *put* is purchased, the right of to sell the asset at a previously established price is earned, ensuring that, in case of a sudden drop, it’ll not suffer losses in its portfolio.

Pods has developed an option AMM, allowing users to buy *calls* and *puts* using the same DEX mechanics as Uniswap and Curve, but with its own solution and liquidity. To purchase options, users must mint them by depositing tokens in their smart contracts. Thus, the issuance of *puts* and *calls* is 100% collateralized. These, once issued, can be sold or deposited in liquidity *pools* within the Pods itself. At first, its use seems complex, but [reading the documentation clears up many doubts about the features and its use.](https://docs.pods.finance/)

Despite having an interface in English, the protocol has Brazilians working on the project. The CEO and Co-founder of *dapp*, Rafaella Baraldo, participated in an event promoted by Fox Bit, the Brazilian Securities Commission and other important participants talking about the development of the DeFi sector in Brazil. [Worth watching](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drfC1DiWS2A).

## **Bankless BR DAO**


The decentralization of media is a disruption that has become constant in the crypto universe. Among these initiatives, there is one that has managed not only to decentralize the creation of contents, but to bring forth ideas that are impossible to be conceived simultaneously in a centralized environment, managed by a few people: Bankless DAO.

Bankless is a newsletter initially written by Ryan Sean Adams and David Hoffman and is a reference around the world for the quality of content produced on Decentralized Finance. The intention of both and the whole team that make up Bankless today is to turn 1 billion of people free from banks, in other words, to introduce them to DeFi in a way that it’s no longer necessary to interact with traditional financial institutions.

To reach this mission, on May 4, 2021, [announced the creation of the world’s first media DAO.](https://medium.com/bankless-dao/announcing-bankless-dao-133220f5efd8) The DAOs – Decentralized Autonomous Organizations – are entities managed by people who compose them, through discussions, voting, participation and initiatives by their own members. All decisions taken are submitted to DAO *smart contracts* and, based on them, the DAO governance is carried out by the participating community itself. Besides that, all functions, works and developments are carried out by their members. Decisions regarding compensation, projects, lectures or legal issues are made jointly by DAO contributors.

This movement, developed by the Bankless HQ subscriber community itself, had wide acceptance around the world. Simultaneous projects are elaborated, not only in the United States, but in several countries around the globe. Thus, thousands of people from different continents contribute to the mission conceived by Ryan Adams: to make people *Bankless*.

With its expansion, Brazilians saw the potential of Bankless content to help people enter the DeFi sector. Thus, engaged in the translation of articles at Bankless DAO had the idea of conducting their mission in national lands and defining the construction of [Bankless BR DAO](https://artigos.banklessbr.com/), the first Brazilian DAO.

At first, the published articles by Bankless DAO were translated to Portuguese and posted periodically for subscribers in their Substack. However, gradually, new members joined and began to foster new ideas for the growth of the Brazilian DAO and the dissemination of knowledge on Decentralized Finance.

While at its inception Bankless BR DAO had the objective of bringing content in English about DeFi to brazilian population, today it counts with [writers producing copyrighted articles;](https://artigos.banklessbr.com/p/introducao-ao-metaverso-451) c[reation of tutorials for beginners to experienced users;](https://artigos.banklessbr.com/s/tutoriais) [production of NFTs by artists participating in DAO or other artists interested in tokenizing their art](https://artigos.banklessbr.com/p/construtores-do-metaverso); and other ideas, and activities that pop up daily on [DAO’s Discord](https://discord.gg/kvX7KmbZ).

Bankless BR DAO’s evolution derives precisely from the essence of the Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: the absence of a responsible centralizing entity for imposing the tasks on each one, allows a level of inventiveness not experienced by centralized media. Each generates its value to the community, and the greater the value provided, the better for all DAO members.

It’s crucial to stand out: all DAO members are remunerated for their work. This month there was the integration of [Coordinape](https://coordinape.com/), a tool to make compensation in DAOs fairer, in line with how much participants understand that other contributors should receive.

## Token.com


Producing quality content over DeFi is an essential task to educate people in its use, especially in understanding the details to interact with decentralized applications. However, the development of projects that interconnect the traditional financial banking system are necessary, aiming to attract a public not affected by technology, but with habitual use of traditional banking applications.

With that intention, [Token.com](https://token.com/), an initiative of [Monolith](https://monolith.xyz/), appears. This was responsible for bringing the first decentralized debit card, allowing its customers to store their tokens in their own *wallet* **developed by Monolith and spend your balance via debit with a VISA card. In other words, without giving up custody of their tokens, users were given a direct interface with the world of traditional finance, eliminating the need to send them to a centralized exchange in order to withdraw their fiat money.

Analyzing the Token.com website, one can see the expansion of the offer of these services in Brazil. Users will be able to perform a PIX¹ for an account on the Token.com platform and, with the balance in their account, earn income in dollars. The magic behind the platform is the investment of customers' balances in aTokens, representing the deposit in Aave's liquidity pools. Thus, Token.com will be able to provide users with the proceeds paid by the loan protocol to liquidity providers without the need to directly interact with dapp.

The ease in exposing the rewards paid for DeFi protocols to the Brazilian population - limited to just one PIX, with the Token.com project - will make traditional finance investors gain confidence in dapps, and will attract more Brazilians who are not used to investing their money, either because of lack of knowledge or because of the technological barrier.

It is worth mentioning here: there are other Brazilian projects in the Decentralized Finance sector, such as [Liqi Digital Assets](https://www.liqi.com.br/), responsible for tokenizing several categories of assets, [even receivables from football clubs](https://valorinveste.globo.com/mercados/cripto/noticia/2021/05/20/cruzeiro-e-liqi-lancam-token-com-direitos-economicos-de-atletas-formados-no-clube.ghtml). The initiatives presented in this text are just examples that, despite taking its first steps, there are already many people working daily for the expansion of DeFi in Brazil.

Know an interesting project and it wasn't brought here? Or are you developing something related to Decentralized Finance? Comment and talk about it!

¹PIX is the free and instant electronic payment method from Brazil, developed and implemented by Central Bank of Brazil.