Brazilians spent $1 billion buying cryptocurrency in May

Brazilians have been spending large sums of money buying cryptocurrency this year – and in May shattered previous spending records by shelling out a combined $912 million on cryptoassets.

According to Bitcoin Media Portal, the data was released by the country’s Central Bank, which has yet to compile and release the figures for June, July, and August.

The May 2022 figure eclipses the previous record – again according to Central Bank data – which was reached exactly one year earlier: in May 2021, when Brazilians bought $756 million worth of crypto-assets.

The Central Bank keeps track of cryptocurrency purchases in a monthly report titled “Commodity Trade Balance”.

Interestingly, the bank classifies all cryptocurrency-related purchases under the “imported goods” section, as it considers the “local production” of tokens by mining efforts to be “statistically irrelevant.”

The digital real is being tested

Meanwhile, the Globo newspaper reported that the Central Bank’s prototype digital fiat – the digital real – will enter the testing phase “at the beginning of the second quarter of 2023.”

Testing is already underway in a pilot project conducted in a behind-closed-doors environment – with crypto, blockchain companies, and banks. 

The bank’s president, Roberto Campos Neto, indicated that the existing tests should continue until January 2023. After this date, the tests will be completed and the bank will carry out evaluations related to the proof of concept before launching the tests. in real situations.

The next stage of the pilot, the bank told Globo, will begin in 2023 and “will run until the end of the following year.” The bank also added that “only a few participants” would have access to the digital currency, and that only a “limited amount” of this asset would be minted.

The bank says its project will help boost financial inclusion in the digital age – and will be particularly helpful to the unbanked.

The central bank declined to set a timeline for the nationwide rollout and said that timeline would depend on whether or not its tests pass.