New Bill Proposes to Legalize Crypto for Payments in Brazil

New Bill Proposes to Legalize Crypto for Payments in Brazil

 

A new bill proposed in Brazil tries to legalize bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as an approved means of payment in the country. Presented by Federal Deputy Paulo Martins, the bill proposes to amend existing regulations to allow cryptocurrency payments and investments.

The Bill Presented Seeks to Include Crypto Payments

Brazil is one of the countries in Latin America that has been taking major strides in cryptocurrency regulation in the last year. A new bill has been proposed in the Brazilian Congress that seeks to introduce Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a supported means of payment. Presented by Federal Deputy Paulo Martins, the new bill proposes to achieve this goal by modifying existing Brazilian laws, including the civil procedure code.

If approved, the bill would introduce disposition XIV in Article 835 of the Civil Procedure Code, which reads:

"Crypto-assets understood as digital representations of value that, not being a currency, have their own unit of measure, traded electronically through the use of cryptography and within the scope of distributed ledger technologies, used as a financial asset, means of exchange or payment, an instrument of access to goods and services or investment."

Crypto Collection by the Courts

The bill would also introduce the option of collecting and paying debts with crypto to the courts, defining explicitly the steps that must be taken to use this technology. The bill safeguards the private keys of the users, clarifying that the courts will not have access to them. To cancel a debt with cryptocurrencies, the debtor would have to deposit the desired cryptocurrencies into the wallet of the specific court.

In the case of a debt collection, the courts will coordinate with intermediaries that will then proceed to block the crypto assets of the debtors to ensure they fulfill their obligations. However, the bill does not define procedures in the case when no intermediaries are holding the funds, meaning that the assets are in a self-custody wallet.

This is part of the efforts of national regulators to establish clear norms for the use of crypto in Brazil. Another cryptocurrency bill has already been discussed and approved by the Brazilian Senate and is expected to be approved by the Deputy Chamber of Congress in the coming months.