Brazil’s largest banks are expanding customer access to digital assets while keeping crypto off their own balance sheets, according to Folha de S.Paulo. Itaú, Bradesco, Santander, Banco do Brasil and Nubank have all widened their crypto offerings since 2025, letting clients trade through familiar banking apps.
Itaú, Brazil’s largest bank by assets under management, now lists 15 crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC). Nubank offers 28 digital assets to more than 7 million crypto platform users, while Banco do Brasil began allowing direct purchases of Bitcoin and Ethereum in January and has processed more than R$11 million, or about $2.1 million, in client transactions.
Yet central bank filings from March 2026 show Brazilian banks reported no virtual assets on their balance sheets. The service model lets customers buy or hold crypto while lenders provide custody or order execution; proprietary exposure would only appear if banks used their own funds and accepted price, liquidity and credit risk. Carlos Akira Sato, co-founder of Syscapital, said regulatory clarity has made conservative banks “more secure to launch their products.”
Brazil’s crypto transaction volume reached R$505.5 billion ($98.7 billion) in 2025, up 22% from 2024 and 433% from 2020, according to Receita Federal. Companies accounted for R$497 billion, or 98.3% of total activity. Stablecoins are a major part of the market, and Resolution 521 now treats purchases or exchanges of dollar-pegged tokens as foreign-exchange operations. Around 120 crypto firms face an October 30, 2026 licensing deadline under rules set by the Central Bank of Brazil, while Banco Safra has issued its own dollar-pegged token, Safra Dólar, with in-house custody.
