Bill Presented in Brazil Seeks to Include Crypto as Approved Means of Payment – Brazil is one of the Latin American countries that has made progress in cryptocurrency legislation in the recent year. In the Brazilian Congress, a new bill has been submitted that would allow bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to be accepted as a means of payment.
The measure, introduced by Federal Deputy Paulo Martins, intends to accomplish this goal by amending current Brazilian legislation, such as the civil procedure code, by adding definitions and adjustments.
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The bill, if approved, would add disposition XIV to Article 835 of the Civil Procedure Code, which states:
“Crypto assets are digital representations of value that, while still not currency, have their own unit of measurement and are traded electronically as a financial asset, a means of exchange or payment, an instrument of access to goods and services, or an investment using cryptography and distributed ledger technologies.”
The bill will also introduce the option of using crypto to collect and pay debts through the courts, outlining the steps that must be completed to adopt this technology.
First and foremost, the measure protects users’ private keys by stating that courts would not have access to them under any circumstances. To cancel a debt with cryptocurrency, the debtor must transfer the necessary amount of cryptocurrency into the court’s wallet.
In the event of a debt collection, the courts will work with intermediaries to freeze the debtors’ crypto assets in order to guarantee that they meet their commitments.
The measure, however, does not specify what to do if there are no intermediaries holding the funds and the assets are kept in a self-custody wallet.
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This is part of national regulators’ efforts to create clear guidelines for the usage of cryptocurrency on Brazilian soil. Another cryptocurrency measure has already been debated and approved by the Brazilian Senate, and the deputy chamber of the congress is set to approve it in the coming months.
