Tokenised cattle have been used to secure a five-figure loan in Brazil, as official data from El Salvador show crypto remittances still account for under 1% of money sent home and Argentina drafts a bill to draw digital assets into its regulated financial system.
On the Engendro Velho farm in Parana, Brazil, a herd of 10 cows has been digitally registered and used as collateral for a loan of almost $20,000, with each animal turned into a tokenised asset on a decentralised platform. The arrangement allowed the farm to obtain a Financial Rural Product Note (known locally as a CPR-F) worth close to $100,000 from BMP, a direct credit society.
Under the structure of the deal, the cows backing the CPR-F were formally assigned to Target FIDC, a fintech firm that captured and recorded detailed data for each animal and registered the transaction using decentralised technology. While pledging cattle against credit is already a familiar practice in Brazilian agribusiness, the use of tokenisation and real-time monitoring is being presented as a way to cut risk for lenders and improve terms for farmers.
According to the parties involved, continuous digital tracking means creditors can check the condition and whereabouts of the herd at any time, reducing uncertainty over the underlying collateral. Humberto Brenner, a director at Target FIDC, said the added transparency can have a marked impact on pricing for producers.
“Monitoring eliminates that uncertainty,” he said, adding that this level of oversight can help a cow “reach up to 2.5 times the price it would have in similar non-monitored agreements.”
Crypto remittances remain marginal in El Salvador
Figures from the Central Bank of El Salvador indicate that digital currencies are still a marginal channel for Salvadorans receiving money from abroad, despite the country’s high-profile embrace of crypto.
In the first half of 2026, $35.4m of incoming remittances arrived via digital currency platforms, representing less than 1% of the total volume sent to El Salvador over the period. Overall remittances in the first six months of the year exceeded $5bn.
By contrast, cash remittances delivered in person – when senders travel from overseas to visit relatives and bring money directly – made up 3.8% of the total. Traditional intermediaries remain dominant: remittance companies and banks handled more than 84% of all funds received from abroad, underlining the continued reliance on established financial channels.
However, the central bank’s data also show that use of crypto for cross-border transfers is growing from a low base. Digital currency remittances in the first half of 2026 were significantly higher than in the same period of 2025, when volumes stood at $25.4m. The year-on-year increase of 39.1% came alongside an overall rise in money sent home.
Total remittances climbed from $4.84bn in the first half of 2025 to $5.06bn in the first half of 2026, an increase of $219.2m, or 4.5%.
Argentina draft bill seeks to integrate digital assets
In Argentina, a preliminary version of the Deregulation Bill, drawn up by Deregulation Minister Federico Sturzenegger, proposes a series of measures designed to bring digital assets and decentralised technologies formally into the country’s financial architecture.
A central element of the draft is a provision allowing investment funds to allocate capital to digital assets, provided such investments are consistent with each fund’s stated policy. Supporters argue that opening this route could unlock a significant new source of demand, with early estimates suggesting potential flows worth billions of dollars into the crypto-asset market.
“Today, crypto-assets are investment assets; it is a good thing to allow funds to invest in themsubject, of course, to regulations that the CNV must approve. It is not a case of just anyone going out to buy Bitcoin, nor is it just any crypto-asset,” an undisclosed source told Clarin, referring to the Comision Nacional de Valores, Argentina’s securities regulator.
In addition, the draft bill explicitly endorses the tokenisation of all negotiable securities. This would cover the issuance, custody, transfer and sale of such instruments using decentralised technologies, potentially reshaping how Argentine financial markets operate if the proposals are approved in their current form.
