By Guilherme Bissoli, Managing Partner, Coins.xyz Brazil
In 2025, the big question in the Brazilian crypto market was almost existential: Will VASP licenses actually be issued, or is this all just a regulatory experiment?
There was legal uncertainty, regulatory apprehension, concerns about the cost of capital, and little consensus around the role of exchanges within the financial system. By the end of the year, however, the scenario looked very different. The Central Bank not only confirmed the VASP regime but also elevated exchanges and digital asset infrastructure to the category of critical financial infrastructure, imposing governance, capital, cybersecurity, and risk management requirements comparable to those of traditional financial institutions.
At the same time, the global market sent a clear signal: the crypto venture capital cycle resumed growth, and the most consistent investments were not in meme coins, but in infrastructure and stablecoins. It is precisely at the intersection of Brazil, stablecoins, and VASPs (Virtual Asset Service Providers) that the frontier of money in 2026 becomes tangible.
2025: The Year the Frontier Became Visible
In retrospect, 2025 was the year in which the frontier of money ceased to be theoretical and became visible. Globally, regulatory regimes matured — MiCA in Europe, advances in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates — while traditional banks began testing their own tokenized issuances backed by strong fiat currencies. Stablecoin volumes reached record highs, rivaling global card networks.
In Brazil, the Central Bank consolidated the regulatory framework for VASPs. The market began to price in the real cost of operating crypto infrastructure under regulatory supervision, and institutional investors started evaluating exchanges and infrastructure providers with the same lens used for regulated fintechs.
If 2024 was the post-winter recovery year and 2025 the year of doubt, the period ended with a clear conclusion: crypto and stablecoins will not return to the margins of the financial system. They have been pulled into the center — along with all the responsibilities that position implies.
When money becomes software, whoever builds and operates the settlement rails controls a significant share of the financial future.
2026: The Consolidation of Stablecoins as Monetary Layer 1
Looking ahead to 2026, the shift in focus becomes clear. Stablecoins move beyond being mere trading tools and consolidate as the monetary Layer 1 of the digital economy. In practice, they deliver three functions the traditional financial system has never been able to combine simultaneously:
1. Global means of payment — 24/7 availability, near-instant settlement, and low marginal cost.
2. Stable unit of account for the internet — essential for contracts, digital services, games, creators, freelancers, and global businesses that require nominal predictability.
3. Programmable infrastructure — money with APIs, integrable with software, protocols, autonomous agents, and new foreign-exchange arrangements.
If the real, the dollar, and the euro are currencies, stablecoins are the transport layer — the road network through which value increasingly circulates. This explains why Web3 venture capital has been concentrating on stablecoin issuers, crypto-native banks, custodians, compliance layers, and liquidity infrastructure.
Sophisticated investors have stopped betting solely on asset prices and have started betting on the infrastructure that makes these assets usable at scale.
The Role of VASPS at the Money Frontier
In this context, the Brazilian Central Bank’s approach is more strategic than it might initially appear. By requiring VASPs to adopt cybersecurity standards comparable to financial institutions, prudential controls, structured risk management, strict AML/CFT policies, and minimum governance requirements for managers and administrators, the regulator is doing more than simply “regulating crypto.”
It is institutionalizing the interface between global stablecoin infrastructure and the domestic real economy.
In practice, a regulated VASP becomes:
- the gateway between the Brazilian real and global digital assets,
- the translator between local regulation (Central Bank, Federal Revenue Service, COAF) and a borderless financial infrastructure, and
- the guardian of the end-user experience, which must be simple yet secure.
VASPs cease to be seen merely as crypto exchanges and assume the role of invisible banks of the digital economy, operating at the frontier between traditional finance and decentralized systems.
Brazil as a Laboratory for a New Monetary Layer
Brazil holds three structural advantages in navigating this frontier:
1. A technically sophisticated Central Bank with a proven track record in building and operating large-scale payment infrastructure (SPB, Pix).
2. A regulatory framework designed to integrate digital assets rather than push them into a regulatory vacuum.
3. A real economy that disproportionately benefits from cheap global rails — exporters, freelancers, creators, technology companies, tourism, remittances, and the gaming economy.
This opens the door to very concrete use cases in 2026: remote workers receiving part of their income in stablecoins; compliant conversion to Brazilian reais via regulated VASPs; frictionless bill payments through Pix; and companies using stablecoins to manage multi-currency cash positions or pay global suppliers.
For the user, the experience may still feel like a simple wallet balance. From an architectural perspective, however, it is evident that money has already become software.
Perspective: Whoever Controls the Rails Controls the Flow
Looking toward 2026, the central thesis is straightforward. Stablecoins are consolidating as the functional monetary layer of the digital economy. Regulated VASPs are establishing themselves as critical infrastructure, connecting this layer to the real world. Investors and entrepreneurs who understand this frontier early will compete not only for customers, but for a strategic position within an entirely new layer of the financial system.
The frontier of money is no longer an academic hypothesis. It is the space where Brazil stands today — defining which rails will prevail, who will be able to operate them, and how value will circulate between the traditional economy, the crypto economy, and the purely digital economy.
In 2025, we saw this frontier emerge. In 2026, we will begin to discover who is truly ready to operate within it.