The Lower House of Brazil's Congress has begun formal debates on a bill to create a new Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, called RESBit, with a maximum value of R$100 billion (equivalent to $18.6 billion).
On Tuesday, the Lower House Economic Development Commission (EDC) held its first public hearing on Bill 4501/24. Submitted in June, the bill provides for the diversification of the Brazilian Treasury's assets through direct investment in Bitcoin.
The 20 August hearing, set for 3pm ET, will host financial industry practitioners and regulators, with the aim of discussing the technical and economic underpinnings of the legislation.
The Chamber of Deputies pushes the RESBit proposal
Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Bragança, the deputy who requested the public hearing, said participants will discuss the feasibility of the proposal before it enters Brazil's complex legislative process.
"We need to involve monetary regulators, government agencies and scholars of the subject to have an informed view before moving forward to final deliberation," said Orleans e Bragança.
The initiator of the bill, MP Eros Biondini, explained that the objective of the RESBit is to be held by the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance, which will also have to prepare bi-monthly reports on its performance and associated risks.
The main objective, Biondini added, is the 'defence of international reserves, i.e. protection against exchange rate fluctuations and even certain geopolitical events'.
According to the project, this would be achieved through the diversification of reserve assets. "We will have a more modern treasury and a different structure," Biondini argued, recalling that "already in several countries, including El Salvador, China, Dubai, the United States and the European Union, governments are using this technology."
These governments are testing blockchain technologies in different ways, and some of them are creating strategic reserves, Biondini explained.
On 20 August, before the EDC, Diego Kolling, director of Bitcoin strategy at online brokerage Méliuz, and Julia Rosim, coordinator of ABcripto's Public Policy Working Group and head of public policy at crypto platform Bitso, will testify.
The Legislative Path
If the process continues favourably, the EDC will send the bill to the three other House committees: the Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation; the Committee on Finance and Taxation; and the Committee on Constitution, Justice and Citizenship, as well as to the Senate.
Brazil is already the largest crypto market in Latin America and the tenth largest in the world by adoption, according to Chainalysis' Geography of Crypto Report 2024. Fiscal data indicates that Brazilians traded cryptoassets worth $76 billion in 2023.
