Brazil drops blockchain from its Drex pilot
13 AUGUST 2025, BRASILIA
Brazil dropped blockchain from its Drex pilot on 13 August 2025. Drex is Brazil's central bank digital currency project, and the change means no public CBDC platform is expected before 2027. Private tokenization is filling the gap in the meantime. The pilot carries no post-quantum requirement at this stage.
The absence of a post-quantum requirement is notable but not unusual for an early-stage project. A central bank digital currency would depend heavily on cryptography, so quantum risk is relevant to how Brazil eventually designs Drex. For now, though, the country has not attached a post-quantum requirement to the project, leaving that question for a later design phase.
Dropping blockchain amounts to a significant design change. The project needs time to regroup around a different technical approach, which is why the restart slips to 2027. With no public platform expected before then and private tokenization covering the interim, Brazil has effectively reset the timeline for its central bank digital currency work.
Why it matters. Brazil's Drex reset shows a central bank digital currency project still settling its basic design, with no post-quantum requirement yet attached. For a system that will rely on cryptography, the eventual design choices will matter for quantum resilience. Organizations watching Drex should note that quantum requirements could appear as the design firms up toward the 2027 restart, even though none exists today.