IMF warns Brazil’s stablecoin activity outpaces traditional capital flows

The IMF said Brazil’s stablecoin market has expanded rapidly since 2017, with cross-border crypto flows growing faster than traditional capital flows.The International Monetary Fund said Brazil’s crypto asset market, particularly US dollar-pegged stablecoins, has grown rapidly since 2017 and requires closer oversight as cross-border crypto flows grow faster than traditional capital flows.In its Financial System Stability Assessment released Thursday, the IMF said stablecoins have played a key role in the significant growth of Brazil’s crypto asset market. The report said cross-border crypto flows have “been steadily increasing” and that stablecoin purchases are two to three times more sensitive to global shocks than traditional portfolio investment or foreign direct investment flows.The IMF said Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) has already taken steps to regulate crypto asset service providers, but gaps remain in areas such as customer asset protection, stablecoin issuance rules and anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) compliance. “The crypto-asset market in Brazil is large and fast-growing, and increasingly interconnected with the traditional financial sy...