Aratu: What Happens When a 20-Year-Old Social Currency Moves On-Chain

Brazil has been running community currencies since 2002, when Banco Palmas issued the Palmas in Fortaleza. Today roughly 182 circulate, most run autonomously by communities, a handful instituted by municipalities. Almost none of this infrastructure is on-chain. Aratu changed that. Launched in Indiaroba, Sergipe — a town of 18,000 whose economy rests on marisqueiras, women who harvest shellfish — Aratu is the first Brazilian social currency registered on blockchain, running on Rede Blockchain Brasil (RBB), an EVM network started by Brazilian government agencies, with infrastructure from Plexos Institute. This talk covers:

1- How a Web2 payment platform migrates existing users to a chain without breaking UX for people who don't know they're using one.

2- Where a state-run public network beats a public L2 — the governance and trust tradeoffs.

3- Why social-currency constraints (circulation velocity, local-merchant lock-in, anti-hoarding) don't map cleanly onto standard token patterns.

Speakers: Solange Gueiros

Track: Users, Builders, and Agents