🔐 Drex files: Privacy vs oversight

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Drex, Brazil’s digital currency, faces technological hurdles

The Brazilian Central Bank has released a report detailing the results of the initial testing phase for Drex, the country’s forthcoming digital currency. The biggest technological hurdle, regulators say, remains balancing privacy protections with the need for oversight. The project has now entered its second phase.

Drex was first conceived in 2020 as a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), designed to serve as a digital version of the Brazilian real. Development formally began in March 2023, but the monetary authority has not set a launch date. The report describes the initiative as technologically challenging and requiring more extensive monitoring than initially anticipated.

The first phase of testing, which ended in October 2024, simulated transactions using tokenized digital assets to evaluate different technological solutions. 

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