Brazil and Uruguay to amend regulations on cryptocurrency landscape
South American countries Brazil and Uruguay are in the process of revising regulations on cryptocurrencies.
While the Central Bank of Uruguay (BCU) plans to prepare a proposal for amending related laws, Brazil is looking to crack down on crypto money laundering with its new bill.
On October 1, BCU announced its policy and work plan to amend the current legal provisions covering digital assets and lay the foundation for the regulatory treatment of cryptocurrencies in Uruguay.
In a statement issued Friday, the central bank said:
“The Central Bank recommends that users of the financial system and the general public carry out an exhaustive evaluation of the risks assumed when operating with these instruments and take the necessary precautions to mitigate them, taking into consideration that high returns are generally associated with high risks.”
BCU noted that it formed an internal working group focusing on studying the instruments and operations with virtual assets. The process resulted in building a conceptual framework developed based on operations and businesses involving digital currencies, which include both new and existing activities covered by current regulations.
In Uruguay, a bill was submitted by a senator in August this year to make cryptocurrencies a legal means of payment following the example of El Salvador.
Talking about Brazil, member of the country’s Chamber of Deputies Aureo Ribeiro said in an interview that Brazilians would soon be able to pay at McDonald’s and buy houses with bitcoin, suggesting that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin would be accepted as payment methods in Brazil.
However, crypto-journalist Saori Honorato debunked the fake news and said that the new bill would not recognize Bitcoin as legal tender.
In the bill, Ribeiro proposes a formal registration system for cryptocurrency service providers and also sets out a direction to tighten regulations. He stressed that the new bill would help protect the public from financial fraud.
The bill, if approved, would require every digital asset service provider operating in the country to register with a government-regulated agency. It also proposed raising the fine for crypto-related crimes such as money laundering, increasing the imprisonment period from the minimum to four years, with the maximum to 116 years and eight months.
Following the approval of Rep. Ribeiro’s cryptocurrency bill by a special committee, the bill would be submitted to the Plenary of the Chamber for deliberation within a few days.
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