Last week, the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB) decided to shut down DREX’s current DLT (distributed ledger technology) platform, motivated by the technology’s lack of maturity to address privacy and security issues, in addition to high compliance costs and infrastructure maintenance expenses.
This decision demonstrates the BCB’s commitment to the high standards applied to the Brazilian Payment System (SPB) while simultaneously signaling strong market entry potential for stablecoin solutions.
Below, we highlight 3 key points regarding the shutdown of DREX’s current platform by the BCB:
1. Insufficient Technological Advancement: After four years of development, the Digital Real, the BCB’s CBDC (central bank digital currency) project, was terminated with the shutdown of the current DLT infrastructure upon which it had been built.
2. The DREX Project Remains Active: Since August of this year, the BCB had already announced it would abandon the current DREX DLT platform by the end of phase 02 of the project. Phase 03, which begins in January 2026, will be conducted on another platform that has not yet been announced.
3. Strong Opening for Stablecoins in Brazil: Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies backed 1:1 by another asset (especially fiat currency, commodities, gold, or silver). As virtual and programmable representations of the base asset, they have high potential to optimize transactions such as forex operations, while promoting innovations in transactions that currently have high operational and compliance costs in their settlement, such as debt securities issuances.
The shutdown of the DREX platform strengthens stablecoin solutions in Brazil, which are already being tested and have several successful use cases. Tokenized FIDCs (Credit Rights Investment Funds), debenture tokenization, and even foreign exchange (driven by innovations from BCB’s public consultation No. 124/2025 on eFX) are some examples.
The market expects that, still in 2025, the BCB will present regulatory proposals for stablecoins. Simultaneously, DREX studies will continue advancing in 2026. These movements require constant monitoring and proactivity from Brazilian financial sector, both for their protection and to obtain competitive advantages.
