Brazil’s central securities depository, CSD BR, said on September 29 that it will begin using the XRP Ledger to mirror the ownership records of investment fund shares, in what Ripple described as the first time a national securities depository has adopted a public blockchain for securities record-keeping. The first phase of the partnership will tokenize BTG Pactual fund shares deposited at CSD BR while the depository’s own systems remain the official source of record, according to the companies’ announcement.
How the Record-Mirroring Model Works
In the first phase, BTG Pactual investment fund shares held at CSD BR will be tokenized and mirrored on the XRP Ledger using the Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) standard. The blockchain acts as a complementary layer for querying and auditing, letting authorized participants check the consistency of records in near real time without changing the legal responsibilities of issuers, investors, or other participants. The environment is permissioned and limited to corporate and banking clients in Brazil that pass know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks, and CSD BR keeps full control over issuance and administration, including the ability to freeze individual assets and reverse transactions through clawback when regulators or courts require it.
A First for Regulated Market Infrastructure
CSD BR is authorized by the Central Bank of Brazil and securities regulator CVM and holds more than BRL 22 trillion in registered assets. “Moving beyond pilots and proofs of concept to a live record-keeping infrastructure in a national capital market is a major milestone for the industry,” said Silvio Pegado, Ripple’s managing director for Latin America. CSD BR’s head of products and clients, Daniel Polano Spreafico, said the company chose record mirroring because it is “the safest and most responsible way to introduce a new technology into critical market infrastructure.” The move parallels other regulated infrastructure adopting blockchain for tokenized assets, such as The Clearing House selecting Quant to power its tokenized deposit network.
What Comes Next
Once the mirroring phase is validated, CSD BR and Ripple plan to expand toward native asset issuance and trading among authorized participants, with real estate and agribusiness receivables certificates among the assets under consideration for later phases. The architecture combines Ripple’s custody infrastructure with the XRP Ledger’s native tokenization capabilities and is designed to add confidentiality mechanisms before extending to new asset classes and international markets. BTG Pactual’s Luis Furtado said mirroring fund shares “creates a concrete foundation for future developments while preserving current processes and the official record.” Ripple has been building out regulated custody and tokenization services for institutions, including Absa’s digital asset custody launch built with Ripple.
