What Happens to Your Crypto After Brazil's 30 October Deadline

30 October 2026 was the last day for crypto companies already operating in Brazil to ask the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) for authorisation. The rules do not freeze your coins or close accounts on a given day. What they change is who may keep serving you, and which banks and payment firms may keep working with your exchange. These are the three dates that matter, and what they mean for your money.

Three Dates: 30 October, 6 November, 29 November

30 October 2026: filing deadline. Resolução BCB 520 entered into force on 2 February 2026 (art. 92). Companies already operating had 270 days from then to apply for authorisation as a virtual-asset service provider (art. 88, I). For firms already in business, the BCB's procedural rule (Instrução Normativa BCB 704, art. 9) required the phase-1 filing by 30 October 2026.

• Filed on time. An exchange that filed on time may keep providing its services until the BCB finishes the process. It may not take on another type of service in the meantime (art. 88, §6).
• Did not file. A firm that did not file must stop providing crypto services within 30 days after the deadline, i.e. by 29 November 2026 (art. 88, §7).
• Foreign platforms. A foreign platform serving Brazil had to move its Brazilian operations and clients to a local authorised institution or to an SPSAV set up for the transition within the same 270 days (art. 23). It must respect continuity, security, transparency and informed consent, and the successor takes full responsibility for client service (art. 23, §§1–2).

6 November 2026: banks and payment firms cut off unauthorised providers. From this date, art. 91 (as amended by Resolução BCB 589) bars financial institutions, payment institutions and other BCB-authorised firms from carrying out or enabling crypto operations with providers "not authorised to operate in the country". The ban expressly covers:

• opening and keeping payment accounts;
• payment transactions;
• trading, custody and FX.

In practice, bank transfers and Pix to and from such a platform are the services at risk.

The BCB moved this date from 30 October to give itself time to publish an official list of institutions in transition. The list covers firms that applied and eligible banks and brokers that notified the BCB (Voto 108/2026-BCB, para. 7). The text of art. 91 itself does not mention that list. Until it is published, how banks treat firms that are still under review cannot be confirmed from a primary source.

29 November 2026: stop date for non-filers, as above.

How Your Money Is Supposed to Be Protected

Resolução 520 does not rely on a guarantee fund. It relies on segregation:

• Providers must keep their own money separate from clients' money, held in individualised payment or deposit accounts in each client's name (art. 28).
• They must keep their own crypto separate from clients' crypto (art. 29).
• A custodian must segregate the assets it holds for clients from its own (art. 78).
• If custody is outsourced abroad, the foreign custodian must be authorised and supervised in its home country and have a legal representative in Brazil (art. 83).
• The contract with a foreign custodian must make sure the client's assets stay available to the client if that firm becomes insolvent (art. 83).

These are the rules authorised providers must meet. Firms in transition have to prove compliance in several areas when they file (art. 88, II), but the BCB has not yet ruled on any of them.

What to Check This Month

1. Find out which company actually holds your account. Look in the app's terms, or the FAQ the platform sends you, for the Brazilian entity and its CNPJ. Under Res. 520 art. 15, an SPSAV's legal name must contain "Sociedade Prestadora de Serviços de Ativos Virtuais", and the company must say which type it is.
2. Check it against BCB sources. Use the "Encontre uma instituição" tool and the authorisation-process data, and the transition list once it is out.
3. Watch for a platform notice. A notice that it is stopping service in Brazil, or moving you to another company, matters most for a platform that is not on the list. You have until 29 November 2026 at the latest to act on a firm that did not file.
4. Withdrawals to your own wallet. Until the BCB's transfer-information rules are fully in force on 2 February 2028 (art. 89, §3), providers may ask you to declare who the beneficiary is and what the transfer is for (art. 89, §1). Expect a short questionnaire when you move coins out.

Nothing in Resolução 520 or 589 confiscates or freezes client crypto because a provider missed the deadline. The obligation falls on the company to stop, and on banks to stop enabling it.