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Banco Central do Brasil has announced the 13 themes that will be trialed during the second phase of the DREX pilots. Santander, Visa, Mastercard and Google are amongst the participants in the 16 consortia, which involve over 50 companies.

DREX is a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (wCBDC) system where the digital real is utilized for interbank settlements. On the retail side, the digital currency takes the form of tokenized deposits issued by commercial banks. The project aims to enable programmability and leverage blockchain and tokenization for financial activities like investments.

The first phase covered the essentials and involved just three assets: the wCBDC, tokenized deposits and digital treasury bonds. Processes such as issuance, transfers and settlement were tested.

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