<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Two companies have gone head-to-head in recent weeks to launch the world’s first DeFi exchange-traded funds in Brazil.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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 </span><a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hashdex-launches-worlds-first-decentralized-finance-defi-etf-301463429.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">notifying the market</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> about the listing on January 19. This ETF “mirrors” the </span><a href="https://www.hashdex.com.br/indices/cf-defi"><span style="font-weight: 400;">CF DeFi Composite Index</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which as of January tracked 12 digital assets spanning across dApps, service protocols and settlement networks. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">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 <a href="https://www.infomoney.com.br/mercados/etf-de-criptomoedas-defi11-da-hashdex-estreia-hoje-apos-captar-r-555-milhoes/">InfoMoney reported</a> 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.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Despite Hashdex being the first to announce a DeFi ETF launch, Rio de Janeiro’s </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">QR Capital </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://brazilcrypto.substack.com/p/brazil-crypto-report-31-the-amazing?utm_source=url">beat it to the punch on February 8</a> when its asset management business</span><a href="https://twitter.com/qrcapital/status/1491034365903925248"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> listed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> its own on B3. The ETF known as QDFI11, references the Bloomberg Galaxy DeFi Index, which tracks </span><a href="https://qrasset.com.br/qdfi11/#composicao"><span style="font-weight: 400;">nine assets</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. According to the <a href="https://qrasset.com.br/qdfi11">QDFI page,</a> 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.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interest in crypto ETFs has </span><a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/98817/brazil-bitcoin-etf-approval"><span style="font-weight: 400;">taken off in Brazil </span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">over the past year or so, with both Hashdex and QR Capital leading the charge. </span></p>