The Bitcoin Beacon
The licence window closed on October 30. The industry expected up to 200 applicants; the unofficial counts are far lower.
On Friday, October 30, the window closed for crypto companies already working in Brazil to ask the central bank for permission to keep going. On Friday, November 6, the second door shuts: under Resolution BCB 589, banks and payment institutions may no longer make or enable crypto transactions with providers that aren’t authorised.
Before the rules, the industry body ABCripto estimated about 200 eligible firms. Market forecasts ran from 150 to 200.
The central bank has not published a list. The best unofficial tally, a monitor run by the consultancy Cainvest and cited by Exame, showed 63 requests at 7:18 p.m. on deadline day and 74 names by Saturday — a figure that includes notices from already-licensed banks such as Itaú, Bradesco, Nubank and Inter, which follow a simpler process, and one application already turned down. Livecoins and Bitcoin.com News put the number of real applicants at about 40.
The filers include Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Bybit, Kraken, Bitget and the Brazilian exchanges Mercado Bitcoin and Foxbit, along with the stock exchange operator B3 and BTG Pactual.
Uphold is ending service for Brazilian users, with withdrawals open until November 30; balances left after that will be converted to the dollar stablecoin USDC. NovaDAX, Coinext, Bity and Oobit are leaving or have left, and Revolut is ending crypto services for Brazilian clients, Finsiders Brasil reports. Firms that did not file have 30 days to wind down.
Tiago Severo of the law firm PSNA blames more than the minimum capital of R$10.8 million to R$37.2 million. Licensed firms must report each client’s custody to the central bank every day and prove their reserves every month. “Many smaller platforms concluded they couldn’t sustain this,” he told Livecoins.
The rules don’t touch a bitcoiner’s own wallet. They shrink the number of doors into it.
Holding bitcoin yourself stays legal. But since October 1, transfers of US$10,000 or more to or from self-custodied wallets must be reported to Coaf, Brazil’s financial-intelligence unit. For a customer of a departing exchange, the practical deadline is the exchange’s own: move coins out before balances are converted or frozen.
The central bank’s official list is expected in the first days of November. It will show whether 40 or 70 is closer to the truth.
Applicant counts are unofficial and differ by source; the central bank had not published its list at press time. Quotes translated from Portuguese.
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