This article is from cointelegraph.com.br and the original article can be read here in Portuguese
In a plenary session of the Federal Senate last Tuesday (19), the rapporteur of the Bill (PL) 3,825/2019 Senator Irajá Abreu (PSD/TO) read his report on the proposal that aims to regulate at cryptocurrencies in Brazil. However, the Senate agenda ended up locked because of the deliberation of Provisional Measure (MP) 1075/2021 that expands students’ access to Prouni scholarships, a situation that should remain until the MP is voted on or loses its effectiveness, according to the that determines the Constitution.
The text presented by Irajá is not the same as approved by the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs (CAE) in February, according to Agência Senado. This is because the congressman made changes to the original text, authored by Senator Flávio Arns (Podes-PR) adding ideas from two other projects, PL 3,949/2019, by Senator Styvenson Valentim (Podes-RN), and PL 4,207/2020 , by Senator Soraya Thronicke (União-MS).
In case of approval, the bill still needs to go through the Chamber of Deputies, where it will pass through a series of commissions, including the Finance and Taxation Commission (CFT) and the Justice Constitution Commission (CCJC), before going to the plenary, where it needs to be approved in a single turn and simple majority. In the case of amendments, the amendments return to the Senate for consideration.
Many people are still unaware of this market here in the country. I confess, with great humility, that I also knew very little about this subject. I studied, delved deeper, sought out almost all institutions linked to this new market in the world and here in Brazil so that I could be able to report on such a strategic and important matter for the economy of our country, said the rapporteur.
Modifications
In relation to the original text, which focused on cryptocurrency exchanges from the standardization of the central bank and inspection by the Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), in addition to providing information to the IRS and obedience to the Consumer Defense Code, the substitutive text presented by Irajá adds to the Penal Code the classification of “fraud in the provision of services of virtual assets”, with punishment of four to eight years of imprisonment and a fine, and adds in the Law of Financial Crimes the provision of virtual asset services without prior authorization, which, in this case, provides for a prison sentence of one to four years and a fine for the crime.
In this big, promising cryptocurrency market, we have some obstacles to overcome and many challenges to face. We had, for example, problems with financial scams. According to official data, more than BRL 6.5 billion in financial scams were identified in Brazil, from this crypto-assets and cryptocurrency market in the years 2020 and 2021, mainly that crime that has been recurring, which are the famous and well-known financial pyramids, added Irajá.
According to him, the cryptocurrency market in Brazil moved around R$100 billion in 2019, a volume that increased to R$215 billion in 2021.
Even in the field of the original text, which was directed to the activities of brokers, the proposal already presented three articles specifically dealing with exchange users as reported by the Cointelegraph Brazil.