Our partners Roberto Panucci and Tiago Severo Gomes commented to BP Money and WB3News on CVM Resolution 249, published on October 14. The rule establishes the CVM DLT Pilot Program: 60 days of testing, extendable for another 30, of the issuance, offering, trading, custody and settlement of securities on distributed ledger networks, without investors, money or real assets.
Both views converge on one point: the pilot is a significant step, but what will define tokenization in Brazil is the legal design, not the technology.
In practice
- A laboratory with its own rules. For Roberto, "CVM Resolution 249 creates a regulatory laboratory with its own rules": within the test networks, the CVM sets aside the rules on public offerings, bookkeeping, custody, centralized deposit, organized markets and intermediation. "This is the first time the CVM has formally put to the test the separation of functions that currently structures the Brazilian market."
- The challenge is legal. For Tiago, "the main challenge is not technological, but legal and regulatory." The digital representation of an asset "does not, by itself, resolve questions relating to the ownership of rights, the finality of settlement, the liability of intermediaries or investor protection."
- Technology is not a regulatory shortcut. "There is no such thing as a 'registered tokenizer.' The CVM does not register technology, it regulates activities," Roberto observes.
- The gain is in credit, and the risk is in the underlying assets. "The greatest potential lies in private credit: debentures, receivables certificates and fund shares." But "the network guarantees the registration and transfer of the token, but it does not guarantee that the receivable exists."
As Roberto sums it up: "Tokenization does not change the legal nature of the asset." The model that will scale is the one that uses technology to make the regulated structure more efficient, not to circumvent it.
