Brazil’s Senate has passed the country's first bill governing cryptocurrencies in a plenary session, which will set the stage for the creation of a regulatory framework for the country’s crypto industry.

The bill must be approved by the Chamber of Deputies and then signed off by President Jair Bolsonaro to become law in the country. This is expected to occur by the end of 2022, according to experts who spoke with Cointelegraph Brazil.

The session that approved the project was chaired by Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco who said:

Federal Deputy Aureo Ribeiro first proposed the bill in 2015.

The bill was then approved in the Senate following lengthy deliberation on April 26, combining Senator Ribeiro's bill with Senator Arns’s bill PL 3825/2019 for which Senator Irajá Abreu was rapporteur.

During the session, the Senate confirmed that the country’s executive branch would be responsible for formulating rules for crypto-assets and could either create a new regulator or delegate its power to the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) or the Central Bank of Brazil (BC).

The session also saw several senators including the bill’s author, Senator Arns focusing discussion on appropriate penalties for crypto crimes, especially fraud.

According to Senator Arns, the penalties for this type of crime should be scaled according to the amount of fraud, money laundering, and other white-collar crimes committed. He said:

Senator Arns's proposal was backed by Senator Rose de Freitas, who called for greater punishments for crimes involving cryptocurrencies and said that the Brazilian market already moves more than $40 billion in Brazil.

Senators also discussed incentivizing crypto miners to open up shop in Brazil since there will be a complete