Itaú Asset Management, Brazil’s largest non-public asset supervisor, has created a devoted crypto division and appointed former Hashdex govt João Marco Braga da Cunha to guide the brand new unit.
The unit builds on Itaú Asset’s current crypto merchandise, together with the financial institution’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and a retirement fund providing publicity to digital belongings. Itaú Asset manages over 1 trillion reais ($185 billion) in belongings for its purchasers.
“The crypto asset section has distinctive traits for producing alpha. It’s a comparatively new market that creates main alternatives as a result of its volatility,” Cunha stated. He beforehand served as portfolio administration director at Hashdex, the Brazilian agency that behind one of many nation’s first crypto ETFs.
The transfer provides to Itaú’s broader push into digital belongings. The financial institution already provides direct buying and selling of 10 cryptocurrencies pairs via its cellular app, together with Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and USD Coin, with custody dealt with in-house.
Itaú Asset stated the brand new division will develop further crypto merchandise, from fastened–earnings–fashion devices to higher-volatility methods akin to derivatives and staking-based funds. The unit will function inside the agency’s mutual funds construction, which oversees over 117 billion reais throughout 15 funding desks.
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Brazil leads area in crypto adoption
Brazil has emerged as one of many world’s largest crypto markets, rating tenth globally in Chainalysis’ “2024 Global Crypto Adoption Index.”
The progress has been pushed by a supportive regulatory framework. In 2023, Brazil applied its first complete crypto legislation, establishing guidelines for digital asset service suppliers and granting the central financial institution oversight of the sector.
After the legislation took impact, Itaú Unibanco launched crypto buying and selling for retail purchasers in December 2023, initially providing buying and selling for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) inside its cellular app, with custody of the belongings offered straight by the financial institution.
In February 2025, Brazil’s securities regulator accredited the nation’s first spot XRP ETF from Hashdex. Around the identical time, native lender Braza Bank introduced plans to concern a real-pegged stablecoin on Ripple’s XRP Ledger.
Still, some regulatory uncertainty stays within the nation. In June, Brazil launched tax reform that changed the progressive mannequin with a flat 17.5% tax on all crypto capital good points.
The coverage eradicated the long-standing exemption permitting as much as 35,000 reais ($6,500) in month-to-month tax-free gross sales and prolonged to self-custody, offshore holdings, DeFi and NFTs transactions, together with staking yields.
The EO confronted instant backlash and was revoked later in the identical month.
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