Three new resolutions put crypto firms operating in Brazil under BCB authorization, AML/CFT, and foreign exchange rules starting February 2026.
Banco Central do Brasil (BCB), the country’s central bank, has finalized regulations creating a formal licensing and supervision regime for crypto firms operating in Brazil. Published November 17, 2025, Resolutions BCB 519, 520, and 521 establish Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) as a regulated category, bringing them inside the National Financial System’s supervisory perimeter.
Key facts
- Resolution BCB 520 applies existing obligations, client protection, governance, security, and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) controls, to VASPs.
- Resolution BCB 519 sets the authorization process, extending Brazil’s existing licensing regime to VASPs.
- Resolution BCB 521 classifies specific activities, including international transfers and self-custody wallet transactions, as foreign exchange operations subject to existing limits.
All three take effect February 2, 2026.
What this means for compliance teams
- VASPs need BCB authorization, not just registration, putting them on the same footing as banks and brokers.
- Self-custody wallet transfers are in scope: firms must identify wallet owners and document fund origin and destination, a direct traceability requirement.
- The rules explicitly cite Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and Financial Stability Board (FSB) standards, aligning Brazil with global AML/CFT norms.
With enforcement pending, firms should map which flows fall under the new foreign exchange classification now.
Where TRISA Envoy fits
These requirements are straightforward to state in a resolution but considerably harder to operationalize: identifying counterparty VASPs and exchanging transaction data securely, for every transfer, at scale. TRISA Envoy addresses the VASP-to-VASP piece of this directly, giving compliance teams a working counterparty identification and secure data-exchange layer rather than building that infrastructure from scratch ahead of the February deadline. Self-hosted wallet verification remains a separate challenge firms will need to solve alongside it. Firms with Brazilian operations in scope should evaluate joining the network now, well before enforcement begins.