Brazil just tightened the rules on stablecoins — and volume grew right through it anyway.

This episode breaks down two sides of the same story. Brazil spent the past year building Latin America's most credible regulated crypto framework, then closed one specific settlement corridor stablecoins could use. Adoption didn't slow down. Meanwhile, Wall Street spent the same few months racing to build the exact same rails: Circle got a federal bank charter, BNY put USDC into custody, and Samsung put stablecoin support on 241 million phones.

What we cover:

• Why trade settlement and dollarization — not speculation — are the segments actually moving real stablecoin volume in Brazil today
• What Resolution 561 actually shuts down (one settlement corridor) versus what it leaves fully legal (client custody) — and why most initial coverage got this wrong
• The October 30 VASP licensing deadline that will consolidate the market around the players who can absorb a $2–7M capital requirement
• Why Circle's bank charter, BNY's custody expansion, and Samsung's 241-million-phone rollout are the same institutionalization play as Brazil's crackdown — just from the opposite direction
• The circumvention risk: what happens if friction pushes volume into self-custody the central bank can't see

This episode is based on Edu's Newsletter — LatAm fintech, AI, and product leadership from the operator's seat.

Subscribe for the full breakdown and future editions: eduardomoore.substack.com

Chapters:

(0:00) Welcome
(0:32) About the Host
(1:07) Cold Crypto, Hot Stablecoins
(2:23) The Volume Numbers — And Why Headline Figures Lie
(4:07) Trade Settlement — The Biggest Segment, and the Least Penetrated
(7:10) Dollarization — Paying 9 to 10 Points of Yield for Peace of Mind
(9:49) Freelancer Income — Real Demand, Early Days
(10:37) Resolution 561 — One Corridor Closed, Not the Market
(14:32) The US and Brazil — Same Move, Opposite Directions
(16:42) The $2 to $7 Million Capital Bar — Consolidation Is the Resolution

Ninety-plus deals, $4.8B in tracked capital, and for the first time in over a decade, Mexico pulled ahead of Brazil in venture dollars.

In this first episode, I break down the H1 2026 LatAm Fintech Investment Report: why CloudWalk's $1.1B FIDC issuance was larger than every equity round of the half combined, what Banco Plata's three-year run to a $5B valuation actually signals, and the four trends that defined the first half of the year.

Full written report and research on Substack.