Brazil’s biggest bank just placed another bet on blockchain, and this one has real regulatory backing behind it. Itaú Unibanco, Latin America’s largest private financial institution, has teamed up with digital-asset infrastructure firm OpenAssets to test tokenized securities Brazil-wide through a pilot overseen by the country’s Financial and Capital Markets Association, known as ANBIMA. The project will examine how bonds and investment funds can be issued, traded and settled on blockchain rails, and it lands at a moment when Brazil is quickly becoming one of the world’s most active testing grounds for putting traditional financial instruments on distributed ledgers.
Summary
Key takeaways
- Itaú Unibanco, which manages over $562 billion in total assets, is partnering with OpenAssets on a tokenization pilot for Brazilian capital markets.
- The trial is run by ANBIMA, Brazil’s Financial and Capital Markets Association, and uses a closed, permissioned blockchain with no real financial transactions.
- ANBIMA approved 20 use cases out of 39 submissions from more than 50 financial institutions, investment firms and tech providers.
- Corporate bonds (debentures) and managed investment products are the main instruments under evaluation.
- OpenAssets previously raised $10 million, led by Valor Capital Group with participation from Tether.
Itaú Unibanco and OpenAssets Launch Blockchain Tokenization Trial
The collaboration pairs OpenAssets’ tokenization infrastructure with Itaú’s deep bench of capital markets experience, and that combination is the whole point of the exercise. Rather than building something entirely new from scratch, the two organizations are testing whether existing institutional standards can bend around blockchain-based issuance and settlement without breaking.
Partnership Details
Under the arrangement, OpenAssets supplies the technological backbone during the testing phase, while Itaú leverages its position as one of the region’s largest banks to shape practical standards for institutional-grade digital asset management. The São Paulo-headquartered lender brings serious scale to the table: it manages more than $562 billion in total assets, according to S&P Global figures cited in reporting on the deal. That size matters, because a bank this large lending its name and balance sheet to a blockchain pilot sends a signal to smaller institutions still on the fence about tokenization.
Objectives of the Tokenization Program
The stated goal is straightforward: assess the potential for bonds and investment vehicles to be issued, traded and settled via blockchain technology, then stress-test the regulatory and operational frameworks that would be needed if this ever moved beyond a controlled sandbox. OpenAssets and Itaú will build technical proofs of concept, work on tokenization architecture and standards, and develop the compliance frameworks that could eventually support broader digital market infrastructure. The initiative specifically looks at how tokenized fixed-income instruments and investment funds can be issued, settled and managed under the kinds of requirements financial institutions already operate within.
Structure and Scope of ANBIMA’s Experimental Program
This isn’t a two-company side project. It’s one slice of a much larger, coordinated push by Brazil’s own financial industry association to figure out how tokenized instruments should work before anyone commits real money to them.
Regulatory Management and Approval
ANBIMA is running the show, and it has been selective about who gets to participate. In April, the association approved 20 use cases for experimental testing, chosen from 39 submissions put forward by more than 50 financial institutions, investment firms and technology providers. That filtering process suggests ANBIMA is trying to keep the pilot focused on scenarios with genuine commercial relevance rather than letting every proposal through the door.
Testing Environment and Use Cases
Crucially, none of this involves real money moving yet. The trials run on a closed, permissioned blockchain network inside a controlled testing environment, which means no actual financial transactions occur during the exercise. Corporate bonds, known locally as debentures, and managed investment products represent the key scenarios under evaluation. The program is also using this window to work out what technical protocols and regulatory frameworks banks and asset managers would actually need if they wanted to run this kind of infrastructure for real.
Why does that distinction matter? Because a closed sandbox lets ANBIMA and its participants find the operational cracks — settlement mismatches, compliance gaps, custody questions — without risking client funds. It’s the same logic regulators elsewhere have used before greenlighting live tokenized bond issuances.
This is also not Itaú’s first rodeo with distributed ledgers. The bank previously took part in Brazil’s central bank Drex initiative back in 2023, an effort that explored blockchain-enabled transactions using digital currency and tokenized assets. That earlier experience likely gave Itaú a head start in understanding where institutional blockchain projects tend to stumble.
Brazil’s Growing Leadership in Tokenized Securities
Brazil didn’t arrive at this moment by accident. The country has quietly built one of the more active tokenization pipelines anywhere, spanning debt instruments, retail-facing crypto platforms and even, in one unusual case, livestock.
Complementary Blockchain Initiatives in Brazil
In July 2025, lending institution VERT Capital said it planned convert debt instruments and receivables valued at $1 billion into tokens deployable on the XDC Network. Around the same time, cryptocurrency platform Mercado Bitcoin disclosed plans to tokenize $200 million in assets using the XRP Ledger. On the more unconventional end, agricultural producers in Paraná state tokenized a herd of 10 dairy cattle, with the resulting tokens made tradable through systems linked to the B3 stock exchange. Taken together, these projects show a market willing to experiment across very different asset classes, not just conventional fixed income.
That local momentum mirrors a global trend. Tokenized real-world assets circulating on public blockchain networks have experienced growth exceeding a doubling of their aggregate value in a year, climbing from roughly $18.9 billion in August 2025 to $38.3 billion currently, based on tracking data from RWA.xyz. U.S. Treasury securities remain the dominant category worldwide, accounting for over $16 billion of that total. Against that backdrop, Brazil’s push into regulated tokenized securities positions the country as a meaningful regional player in a market that is expanding fast on a global scale — and it raises the stakes for whether Latin America’s largest bank can help set the operational template other institutions follow.
OpenAssets’ Funding and Market Views
OpenAssets isn’t a newcomer scrambling for credibility either. Last year, the firm secured $10 million in funding to expand its tokenization platform, with Valor Capital Group leading the round and Tether, along with members of Itaú Unibanco’s founding family, joining as participants. That funding history ties OpenAssets to some of the same financial circles now backing the ANBIMA pilot, which may help explain why Itaú chose this particular partner over other infrastructure providers.
Gabor Gurbacs, chairman and CEO of OpenAssets, framed the partnership as evidence that Brazil is ready to move past theory. “Brazil has demonstrated exceptional innovation in financial services, making it an ideal environment to advance tokenization from conceptual testing to real-world implementation,” Gurbacs said. He also pointed to the broader Brazilian market as one where tokenization projects are shifting from early-stage experimentation toward practical, usable systems.
Whether that shift actually happens on the timeline Gurbacs describes will depend on what ANBIMA’s 20 approved use cases reveal once testing wraps up. For now, the presence of Latin America’s largest bank inside a regulator-run tokenization sandbox is itself the headline — a signal that Brazil’s financial establishment sees blockchain-based settlement as worth building toward, not just watching from the sidelines.
FAQ
What is the goal of the tokenization trial launched by Itaú Unibanco and OpenAssets?
The trial aims to create, exchange and process bonds and investment vehicles using blockchain technology within a controlled regulatory framework.
Who manages the tokenization trial program in Brazil?
The program is managed by Brazil’s Financial and Capital Markets Association (ANBIMA).
What type of blockchain network is used for the testing program?
Testing is conducted on a closed, permissioned blockchain network with no real financial transactions.
Which financial instruments are the focus of the evaluation in the trial?
Corporate bonds (debentures) and managed investment products are key evaluation scenarios.
Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.
