coinculture.com
The bill governing the crypto industry is expected to be approved by the National Congress in the first half of this year.
While there has been a lot of debate about this legislation in the Chamber of Deputies since 2015, the bill was indeed approved in the first round of consideration. The Senate has attached it to another crypto-focused bill that has already been approved by the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee.
Senator Irajá Abreu and Deputy Aureo Ribeiro, both rapporteurs of the aforementioned proposals in their respective legislative chambers, are currently working on a unified text of the bill that will be submitted to the Senate for consideration.
“I’m doing everything in contact with the Chamber’s rapporteur, who did a very good job. The Central Bank’s technical team has also been very helpful. The texts are similar and converged into one,” Senator Irajá stated.
Irajá also mentioned that Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco is expected to put the unified bill to a vote in April.
“By joining the projects together, we accelerated the approval of this cryptocurrency milestone,” he explained. “There is a market demand for a safer business environment and the need for criminal classification to avoid fraud, in addition to adjusting Brazil to international agreements.”
This doesn’t mean Bitcoin will become a legal tender in Brazil, however.
The proposed law would enable the president of Brazil to appoint a federal entity in charge of establishing cryptocurrency rules. The president would either establish a new regulator or delegate this responsibility to the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) or the Central Bank of Brazil (BC).
The regulator will be in charge of defining market guidelines and establishing norms in accordance with international standards in order to prevent money laundering and asset concealment.
The bill also proposes a four- to eight-year prison sentence, as well as a fine, for those who commit fraud in the provision of virtual asset services.
Another point raised in the bill is a set of incentives for cryptocurrency miners to set up shop in Brazil. It proposes to exempt ASIC imports to the country from taxes. However, this may not be enough to entice Bitcoin miners to the country, given that energy prices in Brazil are among the highest in South America, roughly five times higher than in countries such as Paraguay and Venezuela.