Brazilian Banks Boost Crypto Offerings Amid New Rules

Itaú, Brazil’s largest bank by assets under management, now sells 15 different crypto assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the stablecoin USDC, all available through its investment app. Nubank, the country’s largest fintech, lists 28 crypto options for its users.

Banco do Brasil, a leading public bank, began allowing direct Bitcoin and Ethereum purchases in January. The service has already processed over R$11 million, or approximately $2.1 million USD, in transactions.

The Money Never Touches the Banks

None of these transactions touch the banks’ balance sheets. Central Bank filings from March 2026 show zero virtual asset holdings for Brazilian banks. However, these institutions can custody and process crypto on behalf of their clients, acting more as a facilitator than an owner of the assets moving through their platforms.

Brazilians moved R$505.5 billion, or about $98.7 billion USD, through crypto in 2025. This figure, according to Receita Federal data, Brazil’s federal tax authority, is more than five times the volume recorded in 2020. Corporate transactions accounted for 98.3% of this volume, meaning retail activity is a small slice of the overall market.

Where the New Rules Came From

This expansion directly follows a significant regulatory shift. Brazil passed its Legal Framework for Virtual Assets in 2022, granting the Central Bank authority over the sector. Three resolutions published in November 2025 provided clear implementation guidelines that had been missing for years.

Any firm facilitating crypto trading, holding, or sending now requires:

• A formal license from the Central Bank
• A minimum capital cushion
• Segregated client accounts, separate from the firm’s own funds

The compliance deadline is October 30, 2026. This regulatory clarity has emboldened banks that previously stayed on the sidelines.

One key rule, Resolution 521, classifies dollar-pegged token purchases or exchanges as foreign exchange operations. This applies the same reporting standards as sending money abroad, bringing stablecoins directly under Central Bank oversight.

Carlos Akira Sato, co-founder of Syscapital, told Folha that clearer rules made banks more secure to launch their products. Brazilian banks have historically been cautious with new markets, and the regulatory ambiguity of prior years likely explains much of that hesitation.

One Bank Went Further Than Custody

Banco Safra, a bank known for high-net-worth clients, took a bolder step by issuing its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, Safra Dólar, in September 2025. The bank maintains full custody in-house, marketing it as a way for clients to gain dollar exposure without opening an account abroad.

This move aligns with a broader trend of banks building proprietary stablecoin rails. Proprietary exposure means a bank uses its own money to buy crypto, absorbing the associated price, liquidity, and credit risks directly. Beyond Safra, Brazilian banks have not yet crossed into this level of ownership, sticking instead to the custodian role that keeps crypto risk off their books entirely.

Roughly 120 crypto firms operate in Brazil, with most still lacking a license. They are now racing to meet the October 30, 2026 compliance deadline. Banks that have already cleared the regulatory hurdles are well positioned to continue expanding their crypto offerings, while smaller firms face a tighter runway to catch up.

Hashlytics Take

Call this what it is: crypto exposure without crypto risk. Every major Brazilian bank in this story is happy to sell you Bitcoin, but not one of them will hold it on their own balance sheet. That’s not caution, it’s a business model. Banks get the fee income and the headline of “crypto adoption” while pushing every dollar of price and custody risk onto the client. Safra’s proprietary stablecoin is the one genuine exception worth watching, since it’s the only case here where a bank is actually putting its own money on the line rather than just processing someone else’s.