Autonomys Community Lead Fradique was in attendance at Blockchain Rio in Brazil last month, an event which spotlighted Latin America’s significant growth potential as its web3 userbase expands in response to crypto-friendly administrations and regulation from Brazil to Argentina. Roberto Campos Neto, Governor of the Central Bank of Brazil, proposed tokenizing the Digital Brazilian Real (Drex) in his opening speech, positioning it as a “concrete bridge to DeFi.” This marked Campos Neto’s first participation in a conference dedicated to cryptocurrency and blockchain tech. He expressed his ultimate goal of developing an AI-powered super app that would enable consumers to manage all their financial accounts with real-time access and connectivity. Fradique networked with a number of projects at the event, some of which we’ve outlined below.

Polkadot x Autonomys

As the Autonomys Network was built using the Substrate SDK, we are eligible for marketing, business development and developer acquisition support from Polkadot and its ecosystem partners.

Polkadot is actively supporting its Substrate-based blockchains, including Origin Trail, Moonbeam, and Phala Network, in establishing partnerships and business deals across Latin America, and is expanding this ecosystem growth offering to Autonomys. This support involves several strategies:

• Business Development: Autonomys provides Polkadot with insights into our target markets and regional use cases, and Polkadot’s business developers and ambassadors familiarize themselves with the project through pitch decks on the Polkadot Academy. They then map out marketplaces and pathways to address them, and attend regional events to identify potential demands and partnerships.
• Developer Support: Polkadot encourages developers to engage with Substrate-based blockchains by building relationships with universities and the academic sector, and offering small grants to trusted university lecturers to promote their adoption within the academic community. This sustainable spiral workflow approach fosters utility understanding and network activity growth over time, and ultimately connects with developers, technical audiences, and decision-makers, aligning the project’s goals with real-world use cases. Polkadot also assists with translation and localization of documentation.
• Government Grants: Polkadot helps to facilitate partnerships with Brazilian startups, and assists them in submitting government grant requests. These grants receive acceleration through pre-approved government funds, providing Brazilian startups with 3–4x the amount spent by the sponsor (i.e. Autonomys).

This support extends beyond Brazil, with Polkadot maintaining a strong presence in Argentina and Mexico, and in the process of finalizing an agreement with the government of Paraguay. Autonomys’s maturity and AI direction offers a unique advantage, Polkadot concurs. By entering the Latin American market with their assistance, Autonomys will be able to position itself as a pioneer rather than just another competitor in a crowded space.

Mercado Bitcoin x Autonomys

Fradique introduced the team from Mercado Bitcoin — Latin America’s largest crypto exchange — to Autonomys, and in the days following, André Franco, Head of Research at Mercado Bitcoin, successfully installed an Autonomys Network farmer on his personal Mac M1. On August 28th, Fradique is scheduled to feature on Mercado Bitcoin’s Francamente Crypto podcast hosted by André Franco and Rony Szuster (Crypto Specialist at Mercado Bitcoin). We can’t wait!

Bonus Photos

About Autonomys Network

The Autonomys Network is a highly scalable decentralized AI (deAI) infrastructure stack encompassing secure distributed storage and compute, decentralized consensus, and suite of tooling for the development and deployment of verifiable super dApps and dAgents. The first primitive being built in the Auto Suite is our decentralized identity protocol Autonomys ID (Auto ID).

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