Brazil’s Crypto Fans Push for New Laws After FTX Fall

Brazil’s cryptocurrency sector wants the country to approve legislation providing oversight to their industry, part of a wave of calls for more regulation in the wake of the FTX collapse.

Roberto Dagnoni, an executive at Mercado Bitcoin, told Reuters the law had been “kind of dormant” during Brazil’s recent election but has gained new urgency following the multi-billion dollar implosion of the FTX exchange.

If there’s a bright side to the FTX situation, he said in an interview published Thursday (Nov. 17), it’s that it could make the law a priority.

“The rules that currently exist have not been applicable to some players, so they can do whatever you want … This (law) would change a lot,” Dagnoni said.

Brazil’s crypto bill was approved by the country’s senate earlier this year but still needs to go through the lower chamber of its legislature. The regulation would require locally active crypto companies to have a physical presence in Brazil — among the world’s most active crypto markets — and force them to disclose criminal activity such as money laundering.

The news comes as calls for stablecoin regulations grow increasingly louder, as PYMNTS wrote earlier this week.

On Wednesday (Nov. 16), U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) told an audience at a Blockchain Association that a “comprehensive stablecoin bill” could arrive by the end of the current congressional session.

But as we noted in our piece, time could be running short, as a new Congress will begin in January, with the Republican party controlling the House. What will crypto oversight look like under a new party’s control? Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) offered some insight in a conversation with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster in October.

“What we now have is a complicated policy,” he said, “and it’s a complicated legislative text — with compromises within … the nature of legislative compromise does not often create something of beauty. It creates something of practical consequence.”

There’s some urgency in the private sector, as well, as seen in a letter to lawmakers from Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire.

“The industry is moving from its ‘dial-up’ phase, where payment stablecoins and blockchains have helped to facilitate the buying and selling of digital assets, to the utility phase, where traditional commerce, from buying a cup of coffee to funding a new company, will converge with traditional financial services,” Allaire wrote.

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