Brazil Exceeds 1M Registered Crypto Users in July for First Time as Number Grows 68% in a Month

This article is adapted from CoinDesk Brasil, a partnership between CoinDesk and InfoMoney, one of Brazil's leading financial news publications. Follow CoinDesk Brasil on Twitter.

Brazil topped 1 million registered crypto users in July for the first time, the South American country's tax authority, Receita Federal, reported this week.

Receita Federal said 1.33 million Brazilians made crypto purchases in July, 68% more than in June.

The report included crypto purchases made on Brazilian exchanges only, because foreign platforms are not obligated to comply with local regulation 1888, which, in 2019, required crypto companies to report Brazilian users’ transactions to the authority.

One of the points of a crypto bill currently being considered by the Brazilian Congress is the requirement for foreign exchanges to have an Employer Identification Number (EIN) in order to apply for a local license, which would force them to report transactions as well.

The Brazilian tax authority also included reports made by individual investors or companies, both of which are obliged to disclose monthly amounts above 30,000 Brazilian reais ($5,740).

According to a survey released by the Brazilian Association of Financial and Capital Market Entities (Anbima), the total number of crypto investors in the country exceeded 4.2 million people in June, representing 2% of the population.

July's growth coincides with the entry into crypto of Nubank, the country’s largest digital bank by market value, which in July said it reached 1 million crypto users after starting its crypto platform in May.

In July, Brazilians transacted 13.7 billion reais of crypto, 11% less than in June and 28% less than in May, Receita Federal added.

This article was translated by Andrés Engler, and edited by CoinDesk. The original Portuguese can be found here.

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