Brazil: Senate Committee approves crypto-regulatory bill to promote growth

ambcrypto.com:

Regulatory fervor for the cryptocurrency industry has gained heightened momentum worldwide this year, as the $1.84 trillion industry makes itself more ingrained in the financial market. After reports of U.S President Joe Biden signing an executive order on crypto regulation soon started making the rounds last week, another country that has emerged as revving up its oversight on digital assets is Brazil.

The Brazilian Senate would soon be voting on a crypto bill, according to local media, after the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee approved the bill unanimously on 22 February. Once the bill is passed by the Senate and lower house, it would only require President Jair Bolsonaro’s seal of approval before being written into law.

This would make Brazil the largest Latin American country to regulate the nascent asset class, even as nearby El Salvador has already made the top cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender.

The bill will lay out rules for how the digital asset industry will operate while also defining virtual assets and classifying their service providers, including exchanges and brokers. It will also give the Brazilian federal government the power to decide which agency will be responsible for overseeing the cryptocurrency market.

According to the bill, a virtual asset can be defined as a “digital representation of value that can be traded or transferred by electronic means and used to make payments or for investment purposes.”

Moreover, it also defines a crypto broker or exchange as a legal entity that allows “participation in financial services and provisions,” while performing activities such as the exchange between virtual assets and fiat currencies, different virtual assets, along with their transfer and custody.

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