Brazil Tightens Control on Stablecoins and Virtual Asset Providers
Brazil's regulators are taking steps to control stablecoin flows and virtual-asset service providers. Under Resolution 561, virtual assets can no longer settle transactions inside the regulated eFX system, pushing cross-border payment and receipt flows back onto banks and traditional foreign exchange.
Resolutions 519, 520, and 521 limit non-bank providers to $100,000 per transaction while imposing no cap on banks. This asymmetry makes these flows unworkable at scale for anyone that isn’t a bank.
The Central Bank has moved against fund structures used by operators as a side door: routing crypto imports through investment funds acting as FX intermediaries. The BCB considers this disguised intermediation illegal and ordered it discontinued, with the effect already visible in sharply widening stablecoin spreads.