Roberto Panucci and Marcelo De Callis represented Panucci, Severo e Nebias Advogados at the Digital Assets Conference, Brazil 2025 and bring you a first-hand account of the insights from the panel with Roberto Campos Neto (former President of the Central Bank and now Vice-Chairman and Global Head of Public Policy at Nubank) and Roberto Dagnoni (Chairman of Mercado Bitcoin).
Two structural movements became clear
- Tokenization is inevitable. RWAs jumped from US$13 billion to US$30 billion in one year, with 24/7 liquidity, native interoperability, and immediate settlement, in contrast with the T+2 of the traditional market.
- Stablecoins are already systemic. They grew from US$170 billion to US$280 billion over the past 12 months, with increasing use in emerging markets as a store of value, most of them being backed by U.S. dollars.
Campos Neto's warning
Central banks will need to deal with the disruption of the credit function, as deposits are migrating to digital wallets.
The solution? Token Deposits: bringing tokenized deposits onto the bank balance sheet, preserving lending capacity.
What does this mean?
We are facing a tectonic shift: programmable assets, instant settlement and stablecoins shaping not only the capital markets, but also global monetary policy.
The debate is no longer whether, but when and how regulators and financial institutions will converge on this new model.
