Our partner Tiago Severo Gomes Severo was interviewed by Valor Econômico in its coverage of the judgment of the STJ's Third Panel (3ª Turma) that ruled out the liability of Nvio Brasil Instituição de Pagamento (Bitso) for the disappearance of USDT transferred, on the client's own instruction, to a wallet linked to another platform, where the fraud actually occurred.
In the published analysis, Tiago highlighted the regulatory balance struck by the decision: "The decision also avoids an automatic equivalence between exchanges and financial institutions, which is relevant from a regulatory standpoint. Crypto-assets still operate in a distinct legal environment, and importing, without calibration, the logic of the CDC and of strict liability may create distortions and discourage innovation. At the same time, the judgment does not eliminate the platforms' duty of diligence; it merely better delimits where that duty begins and ends."
The judgment, with Justice Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva as rapporteur, consolidates two highly relevant developments for the sector: (i) it recognizes that the Consumer Protection Code applies to companies providing virtual asset services, with the corresponding duties of security, transparency and liability for service failures; and (ii) it rules out automatic liability of the platforms, conditioning it on prior identification of the service actually provided in the specific case (intermediation, purchase, sale, exchange or custody) before any duty to compensate is assigned.
In terms of outcome, the ruling contrasts with REsp 2.104.122/MG, decided by the Fourth Panel (4ª Turma) in June 2025, in which the exchange's liability was recognized precisely because the failure (the absence of a confirmation e-mail in the two-factor authentication) occurred within the service it provided, making clear that the decisive test is the fit between the alleged failure and the operational perimeter of the defendant platform.
For the market, the practical point is that the application of the CDC to PSAVs is now settled, but the scope of liability will be determined case by case, which makes contract design, operational flows and documentation of each stage of the service (especially the point at which assets are delivered to external wallets) central elements in mitigating litigation risk, particularly under the new SPSAV framework (BCB Resolutions 519 to 521/2025).
Read the full article in Valor Econômico.
