Brazil’s crypto market is moving billions of dollars a month and regulators are taking notice.
In a technical presentation at the Blockchain Conference Brasil, Flavio Correa Prado, auditor of Brazil’s tax authority, Receita Federal, revealed that crypto transactions reported under existing rules reached between $6 billion and $8 billion per month.
If current trends continue, that figure could reach $9 billion per month by 2030, he said. Most of this volume comes from stablecoins like USDT and USDC, which now account for up to 90% of all reported transactions in some months. Bitcoin, once dominant, has become a secondary player as the country adopts stablecoins.
This shift towards stablecoins and the scale of volumes are driving a major shift in how Brazil tracks crypto assets. Receita Federal is set to replace its existing crypto reporting rule (known as IN 1.888) with a new system called DeCripto, starting in July 2025.
DeCripto is based on the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), an international standard developed by the OECD and adopted by more than 60 countries. The framework enables the automatic exchange of tax information between jurisdictions, allowing local authorities to access data on offshore cryptocurrency transactions.
Under the new rules, exchanges must classify transactions into specific categories: crypto-to-fiat transactions, crypto-to-crypto exchanges, retail payments above $50,000, transfers in and out of wallets, and movements to unhosted wallets.
Data collection begins in January 2025. With billions in monthly flows, mostly in the form of dollar-linked assets, the country’s tax administration is effectively ramping up its oversight to match the scale of Brazil’s crypto economy’s rapid growth.
These changes come as Brazil’s central bank introduces its most comprehensive set of crypto regulations yet.
The new framework creates a licensing regime for crypto service providers and subjects a wide range of activities to the country’s foreign exchange and capital market rules. Crypto companies will be required to hold between $2 million and $7 million in capital, depending on their business type, and foreign companies serving Brazilian clients must establish a local entity.
Companies that fail to meet the nine-month compliance deadline risk being banned from operating.
