🚨Breaking: Vote on Brazil Crypto Bill Delayed Until After Fall Elections
Effort runs out of time as congressional recess and election season looms
A bill that would create a comprehensive regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies in Brazil won’t see a vote in the Chamber of Deputies until after the October elections, Valor reports. The news comes amid disputes over key provisions and a shrinking legislative calendar.
With a two week recess commencing next week, an election season to follow and more urgent priorities on the legislative calendar currently, the project ran out of momentum for the time being.
The legislation initially passed the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Brazilian Congress, in December 2021 and was approved - with some modifications - by the Senate in April. The Chamber must vote again to approve the text passed in the Senate before the bill can be sent to President Jair Bolsonaro to be signed into law.
While there was significant optimism that the package would be re-approved by the Chamber this summer, it ran into headwinds when Deputy Expedito Netto - the rapporteur for the bill in the Chamber - stripped out several provisions added into the text by the Senate. Most notably, these included a requirement that foreign crypto exchanges immediately register their CNPJ and be connected to AML authorities in Brazil, and a rule that exchanges keep company and client assets segregated.
The removal of these provisions caused significant consternation in the lobbying war between the foreign and domestic exchanges seeking to tilt the legislation toward their liking. ABCripto, a trade association representing the local industry, pushed back fiercely on the changes, for example.
The first round of Brazil’s presidential election is scheduled for October 2, with a runoff election taking place on October 30 if necessary.
We’ll continue to track this as the situation develops
-AWS
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