The pilot version of Real Digital, Brazil’s central bank digital currency, enables authorities to freeze users’ wallets and reduce their balances, according to Pedro Magalhães, a blockchain developer from Brazil. Magalhães claims to have reverse-engineered the CBDC’s functions based on the source code published for a public audit by the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB), the currency issuer, on
GitHub
on July 6. Magalhães was quick to describe his discovery on
LinkedIn
later that day, from where it has spilled over to Twitter.
More details have been provided in a nineteen-part tweet thread by Vini Barbosa, a Brazil-based crypto journalist. Barbosa reports how Magalhães, a blockchain and DeFi specialist with expertise in Solidity, the language used for Real Digital development, unearthed the features allowing CBDC controllers to make serious modifications to the currency ledger directly affecting users.