Brazil's Itaú Unibanco Explores Blockchain-Based Tokenization with OpenAssets

Itaú Unibanco, Brazil's largest private bank and one of Latin America's biggest banking institutions, has partnered with OpenAssets for an ANBIMA-supervised tokenization initiative. This project will explore the creation, trading, and settlement of tokenized fixed-income products and investment funds using blockchain-based distributed ledger systems.

The partnership is part of a broader pilot program managed by ANBIMA, Brazil's Financial and Capital Markets Association, which selected 20 use cases from 39 submissions for testing. OpenAssets will supply the underlying tokenization technology platform, while Itaú Unibanco will leverage its extensive capital markets expertise to investigate the practical implementation of institutional-quality asset tokenization.

The total value of tokenized real-world assets operating on public blockchain networks has increased by over 100% in the last year, climbing from approximately $18.9 billion in August 2025 to $38.3 billion currently. Brazil is emerging as a significant center for digital asset tokenization, with several major initiatives underway.