SA Panel: BC should impose tough rules on the crypto market in the regulation of the bill

Congress approved the cryptocurrency bill which, in practice, only obliges companies in the field to have headquarters in the country to offer crypto assets.

The initial idea, defended by the Central Bank, was to define clear rules for the performance of giants, such as Binance and Bitso, equating these companies with traditional brokerages in the financial market.

One of the pillars of this measure was asset segregation, a separation between client funds and that of the brokerage firm —a way of guaranteeing that investors will be compensated in the event of the company’s bankruptcy.

This requirement was removed from the text for it to be approved. According to the rapporteur, Deputy Expedito Netto, there was no consensus in the Chamber on this issue.

Now, it will be up to the Central Bank to regulate the project and, according to interlocutors of the president of the autarchy, Roberto Campos Neto, the rules will be tough.

Segregation will be peaceful. The regulator considers it too high a risk to let the market continue without some kind of asset protection for investors.

Another point will be the “know your client” policy [conheça seu cliente, em inglês]to prevent crypto exchanges from being money laundering vehicles.

People who followed the project’s progress claim that, given the resistance of parliamentarians —many were convinced by the business lobby— the BC opted to have “any project” approved rather than having “no project”.

This situation, according to reports, was repeated in other projects of the financial system, such as the legal exchange framework.

In all of them, Congress ended up approving a “conceptual project” which, later, had the rules defined in the regulations.

Julio Wiziack (interim) with Paulo Ricardo Martins and Diego Felix