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I'd like to introduce Tiago. Welcome, Tiago.
Hey, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. Can you guys hear me loud and clear?
Yeah, this is the first time I'm connecting to spaces through the computer.
Normally, there's a lot of hiccups, but I'm glad that it's working fine.
It's a pleasure to be here and to be with João, William, and Casta.
We're going to be talking about Brazil and Moonbeam in Brazil, right? Our initiative in Brazil. So I'm very excited to talk about it. There's a lot of things going on, a lot of moving pieces and surely very exciting ecosystem.
So first, I'd like to thank João and William and Casta for joining us today. Maybe we can start with a round of introductions. Tell us about yourself, about the background, how you come up into the blockchain world and a quick overview of your project.
Maybe we can start with William.
What Carbify does is we are an RWA. We bring trees on chain. We call them NF trees. We sell them. We plant them in the Amazon. We've planted three and a half million trees last year.
We do that in agroforestry systems to create a social impact. And the CO2 those trees are producing. We are selling to companies all over the world.
And one of them is, of course, we help Moonbeam with becoming carbon neutral. And this is why we are here. That's me.
Very exciting. And we surely going to talk more about, you know, all those initiatives.
João, maybe you can go next and talk about you and Picnic.
Hello, hello. Super happy to be here. My name is João. I'm Brazilian. Happy to be here talking about Brazil as well. A little bit about myself. My background is in data.
I have worked in finance. Then I moved to tech. I helped scale Uber Eats here in Brazil.
At some point, decided to take some time off, took a sabbatical, studied a bunch of things.
And the thing that really caught my eye was DeFi specifically. That was mid-2020.
I fell in love with the idea of creating computer programs that you don't really need to trust them.
They have their own life. They do their thing.
And I thought as that, that's like the future of the financial system.
That's a bit outdated to say now, but I really deeply believe that and trying to build this.
The main issue I found while using those products back then, it was super hard to use.
I saw a lot of promise, but too far away from the mainstream user.
So basically what we have built as tools and a wallet, a smart account wallet called Picnic,
which is a super easy and straightforward way to access DeFi.
So the thing we're really going after is emulating a centralized exchange experience
or making it very familiar for non-web3 native users to interact directly with DeFi.
I think that's what the future should look like.
And we're doing our best to build that.
As same as Carbify, Picnic is such an interesting project, you know,
really related to making meaningful and valuable changes, you know, to the world through blockchains.
Last but not least, Casta would love to learn, you know, your journey.
I guess, you know, everybody follows Casta at some point in time.
If you're a Brazilian, if you hold the CPF, which is the Brazilian Social Security,
you probably know Casta, right?
So, Casta, welcome and love to hear a little bit more about your time in blockchain.
It's a pleasure to be here, sharing this space with all of you.
As Tiago said, I am called Casta, but my name is Rafael Castaneda.
So, Casta is like a nickname.
Usually, I get this nickname.
I am a master, I have a master's thesis in computational science.
That's my background, an academic background.
So, I was a professor and researcher and also a software consultant for several years
before I dropped everything, all my career and jumped onto the blockchain space.
Nowadays, I act as a content producer here in Brazil.
I do a lot of educational and technical content rather than speculative content.
I'm also a community founder and a builder.
And I'm here today to talk about Moonvilla and Valocracy,
which is an innovation that we have been proposing in sort of an evolution for DAOs
and for a drop and incentive mechanisms.
So, it's also, it's like a kind of a new social economical framework
for on-chain human coordination.
So, I'm very excited to share this with you guys.
Yeah, I'm not sure if my computer has the bandwidth, you know,
to hold the amount of brain power we have in this call today.
Maybe we can go, like, in the main, the first question, right, that we have.
The focus of, you know, this panel is to talk about Brazil
and show the larger audience why Brazil is really relevant.
When we think about Brazil economy, size-wise, how rich Brazil is
with regards to commodity, with regards like, just like, you know,
natural resources and being able to build.
We have a lot of opportunities in the country, right?
As an underdeveloped country, there's also the opportunity to leverage blockchain,
right, which is something, you know, we have several, let's say,
issues for accessibility and, you know, and I think blockchain is coming
to resolve some of those things.
I think the best way to talk about it would be from, to hear from João, right?
You're building, you know, like, picnic and you're definitely aware
of the relevance and the size of the opportunity that we have in Brazil now.
Could you talk more about your, you know, your perspective over the Brazil
and how, you know, your vision in general?
I think giving, like, high-level stats is a good way to start,
but it's a huge country, took more than 200 million people,
So if you check how much time people spend on cell phones,
Brazil is always ranking up on the top.
Crypto adoption is pretty high as well.
It's, like, top 10 countries.
And people are generally open to technologies.
And we have a pretty fast-moving central bank.
We have amazing instant payments that everyone in the country can use.
So there's a lot of innovation, especially, I think, in finance
We have the largest fintech, I believe, in the world.
It used to be, which is Nubank.
It was worth, I think, $70 billion, something like that, at its height.
Not sure how much is today, but it's huge.
They have, like, 100 million users in a country of, like, 200 million.
So the guys executed crazy well and built a huge, huge company
that's mostly focused just here.
And one thing I think might help to give a sense on, like,
why building in Brazil and why focusing in Brazil might be a good idea,
so it's a little bit of what we did in Pecnic and our thought process.
But we used to be very, not focused in any particular geography.
It was, like, very focused in DeFi native users.
But at some point in time, we saw the opportunity to go for a less native public,
to go after normies and ordinary, regular people.
So that was basically a conjunction of a few things.
There was a counter-straction getting out there,
and there's, like, more mature piece of infra elsewhere.
And we decided to take a stab, oh, let's build this experience
that is basically a centralized exchange experience,
And we decided we wanted to focus in a particular geography
that's usually easier to distribute.
A lot of the content that people consume about blockchain,
especially when you're not talking about Web3 natives,
So the majority of my friends that don't work with crypto here in Brazil,
they're not really listening to, like, Bankless
or whatever English-speaking podcast.
They are listening to Casta and other local guys.
So we saw that opportunity in segmenting users
and really focusing in the Brazilian market,
both in terms of, like, distribution, but also in terms of product.
And one key piece of infrastructure we were looking after,
and we did research pretty much looking after every major relevant country
in the world is, like, how do people can go from fiat,
from money in their bank accounts, to crypto?
And here in Brazil, we had an amazing project, which is BRLA.
Mateus, who's the founder, is listening to this spaces right now.
And it's such an amazing on-and-off-ramp experience.
It's literally the best I have ever seen for any kind of on-and-off-ramp.
You go from money in your bank account to stablecoins, on-chain.
You go in, like, one minute or something like that.
Every bank accepts that, and it's free.
So it's a really optimal experience.
I think it's up to, like, at least as good as you get in anywhere else,
in any fintech, in any centralized exchange, and you go directly on-chain.
So that was super helpful to have that kind of infrastructure
to build the kind of product we wanted.
And Brazilian Central Bank super helped on that
because they enabled the banking system to work like this.
But it is a mature financial ecosystem that works super well
with on-chain applications.
So, yeah, I think we're seeing a bit of the future, how it will look like.
And that's very insightful, right?
We think about size-wise, when we think about the opportunity, right?
We think about the size of the opportunity, the accessibility, right?
And Brazilians are very open, you know, to new techs, like you said,
and a good environment, right?
Which is, like, a very efficient way, you know, in this payment season
that we have with, you know, with PICs and other type of payments.
Kasta, maybe you can give, you know, your vision,
which is a little bit more community-based
or just, like, a little bit of the philosophy side of, like,
how Brazilians think and if you're thinking we're in the right direction here.
The Brazilian community is really engaged.
People not only are here for, like, speculating coins,
but we are also a very social people.
So for the ones who are, like, familiar with the social media phenomenon,
and Brazilians really dominated the previous Orkut social network.
Brazilians are prevalent in Facebook.
And we are also, I think, the third or fourth major user in MetaMask.
We like to exchange on community.
So whenever you do something in Brazil,
if you do, like, the correct socioeconomic incentives,
people are really prone to engage and they have a lot of fidelity
for the projects that they like.
So it's a very nice country to build.
We have a lot of not only crypto-friendly users,
people willing to learn about MetaMask,
to learn about on-chain transactions,
people willing to do the crypto-native onboarding.
So for me, it's, like, very good.
I have a fairly large audience here in Brazil,
and I get to talk and chat with a lot of people.
And it's very crazy because I'm also the founder of a community,
and I know the people in our community,
and we have, like, a guy that is a car washer during the day,
and he's talking about some new coin
with a guy that is a multimillionaire,
and they are both, like, talking to each other,
and they have the slightest idea
that they are interacting on the same environment.
So this is something that crypto is bringing together
it's bridging social gaps,
it's bridging economical gaps,
and bringing people together
that are craving for something new.
And for me, it's very exciting,
not only to be in Brazil,
but to be able to build here,
that we can exchange some of this experience
with the broader international audience.
It's a different way to unlock opportunities, right?
This is what I take out of it.
It's more about than just capitalism
and just, like, empowering the individual.
It's about making connections
and building communities through a decentralized way.
Really powerful, really powerful message.
I'd love to hear from Will.
You know, it's a European team,
but heavily involved with Brazil in general,
and I'm sure, like, Will is a very good...
I've already tried several Caipurians in his life,
so I'd love to hear your opinion and perspective in Brazil.
It was only one last year,
I guess, next week when I'm in Brazil.
But we choose Brazil for a different aspect.
We wanted to plant our trees
where we could create an impact for local communities.
And what better biome than the Amazon biome,
where we all know it's the lungs of the earth
and it's under heavy threat.
So we said, okay, hey, we want to plant
and make an impact in a country where it's most needed.
or we still think that it's Brazil
where we can make that impact
We planted 3.5 million trees last year,
and they are already generating
for local communities in Brazil.
And we don't take a cut of that
because that's for the Brazilians.
It's to give back to the communities
It's about giving everybody access
both socially, economical,
We plant trees at communities
where they've never seen a phone in their life
and now they need to geotech our trees.
So we are also educating them on that part.
I got to Brazil two years ago
And there I got in contact
with some people that told me
about how it's going in Brazil
and what kind of impact we could create.
a very trustworthy relationship.
with the right people in Brazil,
that you have connections
for the rest of your life.
And I get the same feeling
if I'm talking with the Moonbeam team,
it just feels all off and all natural.
And that is what triggers us
to keep on doing our impact in Brazil.
from both the ecological side
and social side in Brazil.
And we haven't even really
started promoting our project anywhere
So we are more builders than hypers.
with the Moonbeam coming up
and that we are making an impact
everybody's help with that.
Yeah, such a powerful word as well.
It's funny how friendship occurs
and how you make friends.
this belief of a new beginning
of like a lifetime partnership, right?
and Moonbeam really shares
from the community sides,
from the economical side,
to reduce the asymmetries
what is the main advantage,
of being added to Moonbeam?
We are going to experiment
and all of their initiatives.
we have really not learned
And we are just reiterating
in order to speculate on.
the rebranding of Moonbeam
instead of just repeating
the mistakes of yesterday.
what have you been doing,
this was the main reason.
I don't have enough words
and seeing all the things
with our Brazilian focus,
We share the same sentiment
to a centralized exchange.
via centralized exchange.