RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian Senate approved, in plenary in April this year, the bill regulating cryptocurrencies.
The bill then had to pass through the Chamber of Deputies for its approval, and, as a closing, it had to have the signature of the current president of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, whose term closes soon.
However, the process has not happened as planned. Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies decided to postpone the vote on the crypto bill until after the presidential elections in October, sources close to the matter told CoinDesk.
Also, the Brazilian media Livecoins ratified that the legal project “leaves the scene, after polemics between parliamentarians and companies”.
Deputies were going to consider the crypto bill before the congressional recess, which is from next week, but there were other priorities: the treatment of a budget guidelines law and a constitutional reform proposal for the medical sector, both of which have dominated the legislative agenda.
NO CONSENSUS FROM DEPUTIES
In April, the Senate approved the bill regulating cryptocurrency transactions and creating the label “virtual service providers” for cryptocurrency companies.
But the Chamber of Deputies has not reached a consensus on a final text as Deputy Expedito Netto, in charge of presenting the bill in the Lower House, eliminated two articles from the original Senate bill.
The first deleted article required exchanges to keep their assets separate from those of customers, while the second required exchanges to already have an EIN (tax identification number) in Brazil to apply for a license.
ABCripto, the association that groups local exchanges, asked the Chamber of Deputies to keep those two original articles; meanwhile, foreign companies such as Binance and Bitso supported changes proposed by Netto.
Since its return from the Federal Senate, as a substitute called PL 4401/2021, there have been several discussions about the bill, mainly by Brazilian cryptocurrency exchanges, which expect the creation of strict rules in the country.
One point that has generated debates is the so-called segregation of assets, in which platforms would have to start separating cryptocurrencies belonging to customers from those belonging to the platform itself.
Congressman Netto said in a press conference that the rules of the Federal Senate would be mostly repealed. Recently, with the rapporteur presenting the final text without the Senate rules, many Brazilian parliamentarians and mediators were unhappy, generating controversy over the approval.
It is important to note that the first round of Brazil’s presidential elections will take place on October 2, in which former president Lula da Silva, a leftist and opponent of the current government, is the favorite, according to the latest mainstream polls. The second round would occur on October 30.
With information from DiarioBitcoin