The Brazilian crypto market is now regulated: what changes for investors?
That is the question in the new InvestNews report, written by Lucas Gabriel Marins, with input from our Partner Tiago Severo Gomes.
The deadline for companies already operating in the country to apply to the Central Bank for authorization as virtual asset service providers ended on October 30. According to the article, 74 companies filed applications. PSNA represents several of them and has closely followed what this process requires: minimum capital, governance, internal controls, auditing, anti-money laundering, cybersecurity and segregation of client assets. Not every company that started the process reached the filing stage. Those that did made a significant investment to operate within the rules.
Some points from the report:
- 1.A regulated platform is better than an unregulated one. In Tiago's words, the new mechanisms "seek to reduce the likelihood of failures and improve client protection." Investors can now count on Central Bank supervision, custody rules and a public registry to consult.
- 2.Crypto has no FGC coverage. Neither do Tesouro Direto, stocks, investment funds, debentures, CRI, CRA and private pension plans, and many of these are viewed as safe investments. For these products, protection comes from regulation, custody and asset segregation, not from deposit insurance. That is the logic that now applies to crypto. As Tiago notes, "a supervised institution does not mean a guaranteed investment," and this applies to the entire market.
- 3.Guarantees also have a cost. Recent cases have shown that the FGC can misalign incentives: when investors rely on the guarantee and stop looking at the issuer, it opens the door for institutions to raise funds by paying far above the market rate. The system bears the cost. Regulation, governance and transparency protect better than insurance that dispenses with analysis.
- 4.The greater risk lies outside the perimeter. For those who keep funds on an unauthorized platform, Tiago points to liquidity risks, insolvency, custody failures, interruption of withdrawals and difficulty transferring to another institution. In international structures, jurisdictional conflicts are added to these risks.
Regulation does not eliminate risk, but it raises the standard of the market. Those who invested to operate within the rules now compete with a clear advantage: investor trust.
Read the full report at InvestNews.
