On the early morning of June 30, at 00:18, Rocelo Lopes, CEO of SmartPay and creator of the self-custody wallet Truther, detected unusual movements on the company’s platforms and immediately raised the validation filters on USDT and Bitcoin purchases. The quick action allowed to retain large sums of money and immediately initiate the return of the funds to the institutions involved.
“There were more than 30 transaction attempts; we preferred not to disclose the amounts to preserve the companies, but we are fully available to authorities and institutions to support operations involving crypto assets. In recent years, we have gained a lot of experience in monitoring suspicious transactions with crypto, through tools and processes that we have created, aligned with deep knowledge of the market and blockchain technology. I believe we can help greatly in this incident,” says Rocelo Lopes.
According to the CEO of SmartPay, the incident highlights that the financial system needs to evolve, moving away from a vulnerable centralized structure to mechanisms capable of tracking transactions and blocking suspicious values in real time. “They were concerned with monitoring clients and institutions, but forgot about what happens after the institutions. The private structure is ok, but what happens after that is not,” he evaluates.
Rocelo emphasizes that blockchain could have mitigated or even prevented part of the loss, allowing to track transactions from the origin, using immutable “digital stamps” that would facilitate the immediate blocking of suspicious values via smart contracts. “If it detects fraud, the system automatically locks the transaction and requests clarifications from the recipient. And we can embed encrypted data in the transaction, such as geolocation, IP, and user identification,” he explains.
In addition to traceability, blockchain offers privacy and security to the user, transferring custody of transaction keys to the customer and decentralizing risks. ‘When centralized, the attack point is easier. When decentralized, not even balances are visible for attack. The user becomes responsible for their own key, as we already do at Truther,’ he points out.
For Rocelo, public blockchains, not private ones, are the real way to modernize the financial system, taking away from institutions the burden of safeguarding the resources of millions of clients, while providing transparency and security to the ecosystem.
Asset tokenization is also pointed out as a solution to isolate risks and shield operations against fraud, through auditable and traceable smart contracts in real-time, with the possibility of automatically collecting taxes, reducing operational costs and bureaucracies.
Despite scalability challenges, the market is already testing solutions, such as the use of biometrics for private key recovery and second-layer blockchains, like Liquid and Rails. ‘We are testing in Brazil the key recovery via palm vein, ensuring security even in case of device loss,’ Rocelo reveals.
For the CEO, blockchain is not just an extra layer of security, but a real path to modernize the national financial system, improve traceability, reduce fraud, and lower compliance costs. ‘Blockchain is the fastest way to track and remove money from circulation in suspicious transactions, while combating money laundering and currency evasion,’ he affirms.
International experiences reinforce this view, such as the use of stablecoins and blockchain in payments in Switzerland and Argentina, where Brazilians can already pay via PIX, instantly converted to USDT, with complete transaction records.
Rocelo emphasizes that Brazil could lead this transformation if the Central Bank and regulators support startups and companies developing these solutions. “The billion-dollar hack is a warning that we need to evolve, and quickly. Blockchain, intelligent monitoring, and cooperation among parties are essential to shield the financial system and prevent new large-scale losses,” he concludes.
