Stephanie Douse 
In recent weeks, two businesses have competed to create the world’s first DeFi exchange-traded funds in Brazil.
Hashdex, a crypto asset management with offices in Menlo Park, California, and Rio de Janeiro, was the first to announce the introduction of a DeFi ETF on Brazil’s B3 stock exchange. After alerting the market of the listing on January 19, it debuted DEFI11 today. This ETF “mirrors” the CF DeFi Composite Index, which monitors 12 digital assets from dApps to service protocols to settlement networks.
Hashdex announced in an early Thursday news release shared with the press that the DeFi ETF has attracted 2,200 verified investors and raised $10.5 million.
However, according to the Brazilian finance newspaper InfoMoney, this figure was barely over 10% of the firm’s initial estimate. Hashdex manages a total of more than $1 billion in assets.
Despite Hashdex being the first to announce the creation of a DeFi ETF, QR Capital of Rio de Janeiro beat it to the punch on February 8 when its asset management division listed its own on B3.
The Bloomberg Galaxy DeFi Index, which covers nine assets, is referenced by the ETF known as QDFI11. According to the QDFI website, this ETF presently has net assets at around $7.4 million. QR Asset Management manages assets of around $145.2 million.
In Brazil, interest in crypto ETFs has skyrocketed in the last year or two, with Hashdex and QR Capital leading the drive.