Brazilian banks are getting much more comfortable with crypto. The catch is that they are still keeping it at arm’s length.
Itaú, Brazil’s biggest bank by assets under management, now offers 15 crypto assets through its investment app, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin. Nubank goes further, with 28 tokens available to customers.
Banco do Brasil has also entered the retail market. After launching direct Bitcoin and Ethereum purchases in January, the state-owned bank said its service has already processed more than R$11 million in transactions, according to Folha de S.Paulo.
Yet there is a striking detail behind the growing menus: the banks themselves are not holding crypto.
Central Bank filings from March 2026 reviewed by Folha show no virtual assets on the balance sheets of Brazilian banks. The institutions can still custody crypto and process transactions for customers, but they are not putting their own capital on the line.
It is a distinction that says a lot about where traditional finance currently stands in Brazil. Banks are willing to sell crypto. They are far less interested in betting the house on it.
Brazilian banks found a comfortable way into crypto
The expansion has accelerated over the past year. Itaú, Bradesco, Santander, Banco do Brasil and Nubank have all broadened their crypto offerings as activity across the Brazilian market has surged.
Receita Federal data shows that Brazilians moved R$505.5 billion in crypto during 2025, more than five times the amount recorded in 2020.
Most of that volume, however, did not come from individual investors. Companies accounted for R$497 billion, or 98.3% of all crypto transactions tracked by Brazil’s federal tax authority.
That helps explain why banks are paying attention. Crypto is no longer a niche product sitting outside mainstream finance. There is already a substantial flow of money to service, even if banks remain cautious about taking direct market exposure.
Regulation made crypto easier for banks to sell
The timing is hardly accidental.
Brazil’s 2022 Legal Framework for Virtual Assets gave the Central Bank authority over the sector. The regulator then issued three resolutions in November 2025 that turned that authority into a much more defined set of requirements.
Companies allowing customers to trade, hold or transfer crypto now need a license, minimum capital requirements and segregated customer accounts. Existing firms face a deadline of October 30, 2026, to comply.
One regulation in particular has put stablecoins under a brighter spotlight. Resolution 521 classifies purchases and exchanges involving dollar-pegged tokens as foreign-exchange operations, placing them under reporting requirements similar to those involved in sending money abroad.
For banks accustomed to operating inside tightly defined regulatory boundaries, that clarity matters.
Carlos Akira Sato, co-founder of consultancy Syscapital, told Folha that Brazilian banks tend to be conservative when entering new markets. Clearer rules, he said, made them “more secure to launch their products.”
That helps explain the current strategy: offer customers access, build the infrastructure around the activity and let the client take the market risk.
There is one notable exception.
Banco Safra, a smaller institution known for serving high-net-worth customers, launched its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, Safra Dólar, in September 2025. The bank also keeps custody in-house and pitches the product as a way for clients to gain dollar exposure without opening an overseas account.
That move points toward a broader possibility for Brazilian banks: instead of simply distributing crypto issued elsewhere, they could eventually build some of the rails themselves.
But that is still different from filling their own balance sheets with Bitcoin, Ether or other volatile assets.
In practice, proprietary crypto exposure begins when a bank uses its own money to buy digital assets and takes on the associated price, liquidity and credit risks. By that definition, Brazilian banks have not made that leap.
For now, the financial industry appears to have found a middle ground. It can respond to customer demand without turning crypto into a direct wager on the bank’s books.
And with roughly 120 crypto companies operating in Brazil, many of them still unlicensed, the regulatory clock is adding another incentive to move quickly.
As the October 30, 2026 deadline approaches, institutions that already have the compliance framework in place may have an increasingly obvious advantage: they can keep expanding the crypto shelf while others are still trying to get through the door.