A proposed cryptocurrency bill was not discussed by the Brazilian Congress this week. Although the proposed public policy was on the agenda, the deputy chamber’s discussion of the bills tended to other issues, such as health and issues with digital education. In September, there will be another discussion of the bill pertaining to digital currency.
The Brazilian Congress postponed the discussion and potential vote on a proposed cryptocurrency bill that was scheduled for this week in order to deal with other legislative matters. The deputy chamber, who had just returned from a vocational period, discussed additional bills that dealt with prisoner issues, health plans, and digital education.
Due to the proximity of the general legislative and presidential elections, the deputy chamber won’t be able to discuss this bill until September. Deputies will therefore only have these windows of time to develop their legislative responsibilities as they will be preoccupied with their individual campaigns in each of their states. Concentrated effort windows are the names for these times.
Some parts of the crypto-focused bill have already been cut, including the tax exemptions for green mining companies, as the rapporteur of the law, Expedito Netto, stated that these matters should be addressed in subsequent laws that deal with clean energy issues.
While Congress is preoccupied with election-related issues, members of Brazil’s cryptocurrency community have expressed dissatisfaction with the circumstance. Critics pointed out that this would postpone the passage of such a bill and any positive effects it might have on the environment.
The deputy chamber was urged to set aside some time during the following period of concentrated effort to discuss the referred bill by Julien Dutra, director of regulatory affairs at 2TM, the holding company for Mercado Bitcoin, one of the largest exchanges in Brazil. He stated:
With each postponement of the vote, investments and the development of solutions with high potential to change people’s lives are postponed, in addition to the fact that we lose the opportunity to turn off the tap of some serious systemic risks such as fraud prevention, money laundering, and unfair competition.
If the bill gets sidelined again during the next concentrated effort window in September, it is likely that its discussion and approval will be pushed off until after the general ballot that takes place next October.
Recently, the director of the Central Bank of Brazil praised bitcoin (BTC) as the precursor of Web3 technology and talked about giving smart traits to the digital real, the proposed Brazilian central bank digital currency.
