Brazil: Crypto Intermediaries, Custodians and Brokers are “Financial Institutions”

By Fabiano Deffenti

Today, the Brazilian Central Bank published a new resolution (Resolution CMN 5,280/2026) that deems “service providers of virtual assets” as “financial institutions”.

This affects:

• Intermediaries, that is, those that provide underwriting and placement of virtual assets; exchanging virtual assets; administering virtual asset portfolios (including mixed portfolios, where permitted); acting as trustee in virtual asset market operations; staking; providing virtual asset services in the FX market; and other activities expressly authorised by the Central Bank;

• Custodians, that is, those that provide safeguarding and controlling instruments that enable the exercise of rights over the virtual asset (such as private keys); maintaining an up-to-date description of the client’s position and reconciling it with distributed ledger technology (DLT) records; executing and retaining transfer/movement instructions from the holder (or their authorised representative); handling events affecting the asset; and managing data relevant to those custody activities; and

• Brokers, that is, those that act both as an intermediary and custodian.

This is a material shift and will bring with it much more red tape for crypto operators, especially regarding data handling and suspicious-activity controls.

The Resolution comes into force on 1 March 2026.

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Brazil Compliance Cryptocurrencies Foreign Direct Investment Tax Transparency

Last modified: 27 February 2026