Brazil’s stablecoin separation
Plus: a glimmer of BTC momentum, what on earth is skew, and more
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Brazil’s stablecoin separation
Market: maybe momentum
Term of the day: 25-delta skew
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Brazil’s stablecoin separation
Last week, Brazil’s central bank published Resolution BCB 561/26 which some sources are calling a “stablecoin ban”. It isn’t.
It does ban electronic foreign exchange service providers such as Wise, Nomad and most banks (known as eFX firms) from using stablecoins on their “back-end” for cross-border transfers. What they won’t be able to do after the resolution takes effect in October is collect a client’s reals, convert them into stablecoins and send them to an address domiciled in another country for fiat conversion on that end. Essentially, it bans the “stablecoin sandwich” where cross-border flows look like they’re in fiat but they’re really onchain.
The resolution does not ban cross-border stablecoin transfers. It just reinforces the boundaries between fiat services and digital asset services. A Brazilian corporation can send USDT, for example, to wherever it wants as long as it uses a regulated digital assets platform (known as a PSAV or VASP) or an institution authorized to handle stablecoins.
In sum, stablecoins can be used for cross-border payments in Brazil – just not as part of traditional eFX services.
