DeFi ETFs take flight in Brazil with two launches this month

Two companies have gone head-to-head in recent weeks to launch the world’s first DeFi exchange-traded funds in Brazil.

The first firm to announce a DeFi ETF launch on Brazil’s B3 stock exchange was Hashdex, a crypto asset manager with offices in Menlo Park, California, and Rio de Janeiro. It launched DEFI11 today after notifying the market about the listing on January 19. This ETF “mirrors” the CF DeFi Composite Index, which as of January tracked 12 digital assets spanning across dApps, service protocols and settlement networks. 

In an early Thursday press announcement shared with The Block, Hashdex said the DeFi ETF had attracted 2,200 confirmed investors and raised $10.5 million. However, the Brazilian finance publication InfoMoney reported that this amount was just more than 10% of the firm’s initial estimate. Hashdex has a total of more than $1 billion in assets under management.

Despite Hashdex being the first to announce a DeFi ETF launch, Rio de Janeiro’s QR Capital beat it to the punch on February 8 when its asset management business listed its own on B3. The ETF known as QDFI11, references the Bloomberg Galaxy DeFi Index, which tracks nine assets. According to the QDFI page, this ETF currently has the equivalent of about $7.4 million in net assets. QR Asset Management has the equivalent of about $145.2 million in assets under management.

Interest in crypto ETFs has taken off in Brazil over the past year or so, with both Hashdex and QR Capital leading the charge.