On 2 September 2026, the Senate’s Comissão de Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovação e Informática (CCT) approved Senator Carlos Portinho’s substitute to PL 1.536/2023, folding in companion PL 2.451/2023. Agência Senado reported the vote the same day. The substitute would amend Lei nº 14.478/2022 (Brazil’s Virtual Assets Law) so that client cash, virtual assets, and their backing (lastros) sit outside a PSAV’s own estate. The bill is not law. It still has to clear the Comissão de Assuntos Econômicos (CAE) and then the Comissão de Constituição, Justiça e Cidadania (CCJ) in terminative decision.

How PL 1.536/2023 got to a CCT substitute

Both bills were filed by Senator Marcos do Val (Avante-ES) in 2023. Their shared aim, restated in Portinho’s CCT report, is investor protection after exchange failures and a statutory bar on using client funds for proprietary risk. The report names FTX, BlockFi, and LBLV as cautionary cases: FTX is described there as having used client money in credit operations and left an estimated US$10 billion liability across about a million creditors.

The packages first went to the Comissão de Comunicação e Direito Digital (CCDD), where Portinho was already rapporteur. After that commission was not installed, the Senate Presidency redirected them to the CCT under art. 48, X of the Senate Rules and Ato do Presidente nº 22/2025. No amendments were filed in the CCT. Portinho’s vote was to approve PL 1.536/2023 (the older file) as a single Emenda (Substitutivo) that absorbs PL 2.451/2023. The operative committee text is that CCT substitute of 2 September 2026. CAE can still rewrite it; CCJ can still kill or reshape it. Nothing in the PDF binds a Brazilian exchange until Congress enacts a final text and the President sanctions it.

What the CCT substitute would write into Lei 14.478/2022

The Emenda rewrites four places in the Virtual Assets Law. The load-bearing change is patrimonial segregation.

Art. 4º guidelines. New items would add (i) AML/CFT and counter-proliferation language aligned with international standards, and (ii) “controle e manutenção de forma segregada dos recursos aportados pelos clientes” (control and segregated maintenance of client-contributed resources) as an explicit guideline of the virtual-asset services regime.

Art. 5º, §§ 2º–4º (the segregation core). PSAVs would have to keep financial resources, virtual assets, and their respective backing of their own title separate from those held for the account and order of third parties. Client-held assets:

  • would not answer, directly or indirectly, for any obligation of the PSAV;
  • could not be retained, attached, pledged, seized, or otherwise constrained for the PSAV’s own debts;
  • would not form part of the PSAV’s estate, could not be given as collateral for the PSAV’s obligations, and would not compose its assets.

That is the legal wall the FTX-style mingling story is meant to hit. Portinho’s analysis describes it as a formal barrier against using client capital for the firm’s own leveraged bets.

Art. 5º, § 1º (tokenized assets and NFTs). The federal body designated under the Executive act that already points the Virtual Assets Law may authorize other related services, including operations with tokenized assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The substitute makes that permission explicit rather than leaving it implied.

Art. 7º, VI (traceability duties on the regulator). The designated regulator would have to foster tracing and identification of actors and amounts, including promotion of centralized providers that run full KYC, use of block explorers, and more complete public-ledger information. That language comes mainly from PL 2.451/2023.

Art. 13-A (prudential capital). “O órgão ou entidade reguladora previsto no caput do art. 7º” would set minimum prudential capital for brokers and virtual-asset investment platforms. Portinho’s report is explicit about why the substitute does not name the Banco Central do Brasil and does not keep the original 180-day clock: both were dropped to avoid a constitutional initiative / exclusive-competence challenge against Congress writing duties onto a named Executive organ on a fixed deadline. In practice the art. 7º regulator for virtual-asset services is already the BCB under Decreto nº 11.563/2023, but the statute would speak through the existing designation rather than hard-coding the bank’s name again.

Statute on top of a licensing stack that already talks about segregation

Brazil is not starting from a blank page. Lei 14.478/2022 already defines virtual-asset services. The BCB’s November 2025 package (Resoluções BCB 519, 520, and 521), in force from 2 February 2026, is the licensing and conduct layer: SPSAV authorization, capital, governance, custody controls, and the 30 October 2026 filing deadline for incumbents we covered in the Res. 520 explainer. Resolução BCB nº 580 adds Tipo 3 prudential weight. Resolução BCB nº 584 will put a 24-hour hold on large exits to self-custody or a foreign provider from 1 January 2027.

What PL 1.536/2023 would add is a statutory segregation clause with bankruptcy- and creditor-facing language that a BCB resolution alone does not supply. Operational custody rules can tell a supervised firm how to book and hold client assets day to day. A law that says those assets are not the firm’s estate, cannot collateralize the firm’s debts, and cannot be seized for the firm’s creditors is a different instrument: it is what insolvency lawyers reach for when the platform is already in trouble. The CCT substitute is trying to put that instrument into Lei 14.478 itself.

That sequencing matters for the calendar. Platforms are still racing the 30 October SPSAV file. A segregation statute that is still two committees away does not replace that deadline. It would, if enacted, raise the legal floor under whatever custody architecture those files already describe.

Who feels this if it becomes law

People who leave balances on Brazilian exchanges. Segregation is a recovery rule for assets still with the intermediary. It does not move coins into a wallet you control. If CAE and CCJ keep Portinho’s §§ 2º–4º and the bill is sanctioned, a client’s claim in a PSAV insolvency is supposed to sit outside the firm’s general creditors. That is the practical delta versus relying only on BCB conduct rules.

PSAV operators and their counsel. Product, treasury, and insolvency playbooks would need to match statutory segregation, not only Res. 520 custody controls: separate books, no pledging client lastros for house leverage, and documentation a bankruptcy court can read. Art. 13-A would also invite a fresh prudential-capital rulemaking pass from the art. 7º regulator, on top of the capital floors already in the SPSAV stack.

Builders watching Brazil from the rest of LatAm. Brazil is the region’s deepest crypto market, and other supervisors already study its numbered BCB texts. A statutory segregation clause in Lei 14.478 would be a template Argentina’s CNV PSAV regime and Mexico’s Banxico/CNBV stack can copy, tighten, or reject. Remittance and dollar-hedge flows that park USDT on Brazilian venues overnight are exactly the balances this clause tries to ring-fence.

Self-custody. The bill does not restrict holding your own keys. It hardens the legal status of coins you have not yet withdrawn. Res. 584’s forthcoming 24-hour exit hold and a statutory segregation rule work from opposite ends: one slows large exits; the other tries to protect what is still inside. Neither replaces an exit plan you rehearse.

What still has to happen

After CCT, the file goes to CAE, then to CCJ for a terminative decision (Agência Senado; matéria page). Terminative means CCJ can finish the Senate side without a floor vote unless the plenary pulls it back. The Chamber of Deputies still has to act if the Senate text differs from whatever companion path exists there, and presidential sanction is still required. Watch for CAE amendments that soften §§ 3º–4º (the non-attachment / non-estate language) or that reopen the BCB-naming fight Portinho closed.

If you use a Brazilian platform today: treat CCT approval as a committee signal, not a live protection. Prefer venues that already publish clear client-asset segregation and SPSAV-filing status, keep large balances on a short leash, and test withdrawals to an address you control before you need them. If you operate or advise a PSAV: map Portinho’s art. 5º paragraphs against your current Res. 520 custody design so a CAE rewrite does not surprise your counsel.

This is a reading of the CCT substitute and the Agência Senado account of the 2 September vote, not legal, tax, insolvency, or investment advice. Verify the operative PDF on the Senate getter for dm=10307842 and the PL 1.536/2023 matéria before you change a product, a custody architecture, or a client agreement.

Takeaway

PL 1.536/2023, in the 2 September 2026 CCT substitute that also absorbs PL 2.451/2023, would write client-asset segregation, AML guidelines, regulator-led tracing duties, and a prudential-capital hook into Lei nº 14.478/2022. Client balances, coins, and backing would be kept off the PSAV’s estate and out of reach of the firm’s own creditors, on the face of the draft. The text still has to survive CAE and CCJ. Until then, the live Brazilian stack remains the BCB SPSAV resolutions and the October filing clock, not this substitute.