The bi-weekly pulse of digital currencies #9 - CLARITY Act moves forward without Democratic votes, Japan launches stablecoin with three banks, and Brazil reveals R$ 1.13 trillion in stablecoins.
1. The CLARITY Act has entered the riskiest phase of its history—and time is now the enemy. The final text has reached lawmakers' offices, yet not a single Democrat has committed to voting for it. Seven more votes are needed to reach the required 60. If Thune doesn't move to end debate by August 10, the next realistic window is November—after the elections, in a completely different political landscape.
2. Asia is no longer just running pilots—it is launching products. MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho didn't announce tests; they announced a joint stablecoin issuance for the 2026 fiscal year. While Washington is still counting votes and the ECB is negotiating legal text in trilogues, the Asian bank-centric model is already ready to operate at scale.
3. Brazil has R$ 1.13 trillion worth of reasons to regulate quickly—but the right benchmark doesn't exist yet. The Central Bank of Brazil’s (BCB) proposal for a 24-hour holding period attempts to put the brakes on a mechanism that has already processed 72% of all crypto volume declared in the country via stablecoins. ABcripto is already formally challenging the move. Meanwhile, the tension between two regulatory frameworks—with the Federal Revenue Service and the BCB treating the same asset differently—remains unresolved.
The two-week period ending July 22, 2026, will be remembered as the moment the global stablecoin market stopped waiting for regulation and began operating despite it. The CLARITY Act might never clear the Senate. The digital euro might not arrive in time. But digital money isn't waiting for any of those timelines.
USA — CLARITY Act facing its highest-risk moment to date. Zero confirmed Democratic supporters. Three senators formally opposed.
The Polymarket platform—which aggregates market expectations regarding future events—projects a 33% chance of passage in 2026. The deadline is August 10. If the Senate leader does not formally move to end debate this week, there will be no summer vote. The next realistic window would be November, in the post-election period.
Europe — Digital euro in legislative negotiations. Qivalis leads the private sector. The European Parliament has initiated trilogues to finalize the digital euro's legal framework. Meanwhile, Qivalis—a consortium of 37 European banks—awaits a license from the Dutch Central Bank to launch its private euro-backed stablecoin in the second half of the year. Every month of delay for the public digital euro is a month in which private players define market standards.
Asia — Japan’s three largest banks announce a joint stablecoin. MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho will confirm the issuance of a yen-backed stablecoin for the 2026 fiscal year. This reflects the Asian model: banks at the center, not fintechs. Hong Kong is preparing for its first regulated launches. South Korea is proposing a "single ledger" model as an alternative to private stablecoins.
🇧🇷 Brazil — Central Bank proposes 24-hour hold on crypto transfers; R$ 1.13 trillion in stablecoins declared. On June 26, the Central Bank proposed a precautionary hold of up to 24 hours on outbound crypto transfers exceeding US$ 10,000, set to take effect in October. ABcripto has formally requested the suspension of the measure. The Ministry of Finance revealed that R$ 1.13 trillion in stablecoins had been declared to the Federal Revenue Service by December 2025—representing 72% of all crypto volume declared in the country.
🌎 Latin America — US$324 billion in stablecoins in 2025. An 89% increase year-over-year. Brazil accounts for US$89 billion. The U.S. ban on a public digital dollar solidifies the dominance of private, dollar-backed stablecoins in the region. Peru implements the FATF Travel Rule in August.
On July 22, 2026, Senator Cynthia Lummis released the final consolidated text of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act—a U.S. law defining regulatory jurisdiction over various types of digital assets), combining versions approved by the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees. The text was distributed to all Senate offices. A vote was scheduled for the week of July 23. The deadline before Congress's summer recess is August 10.
The issue: on the day the text was released, no Democratic senator had confirmed support for the bill. The CLARITY Act requires at least 60 votes to pass without a filibuster—and Republicans hold only 53 Senate seats. Seven Democratic votes are still needed, none of which were confirmed as of this writing.
On the other side of the world, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank (MUFG), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), and Mizuho Bank—Japan’s three largest banks—announced plans to jointly issue stablecoins in the 2026 fiscal year. With pilot programs involving Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) already underway since November 2025, the three banks are moving beyond the testing phase to announce the actual product.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) sparked a new regulatory debate on June 26 with a proposal to impose a precautionary hold of up to 24 hours on crypto transactions exceeding US$ 10,000 destined for overseas accounts or self-custody wallets. The measure is slated to take effect in October 2026, though it faces formal opposition from ABcripto, which has called for its suspension. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance revealed figures explaining the BCB's actions: R$ 1.13 trillion in stablecoin holdings were declared to the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service by December 2025—representing 72% of the total crypto volume declared in the country.
On July 22, 2026, Republican senators released the final consolidated text of the CLARITY Act, incorporating the versions approved by both the Senate Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee in May, as well as ethics language negotiated with the White House. Senate Majority Leader John Thune pledged to bring the bill to the floor before the summer recess, targeting the week of July 23.
A key obstacle remains: the released text omits the proposal Democrats demanded as a condition for their votes—allowing state attorneys general to file civil lawsuits against the federal government over failures to enforce ethics rules linked to President Trump’s crypto dealings. On the same day the text was released, Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, and Jeff Merkley held a press conference announcing their formal opposition to the bill.
“I didn’t spend years on this issue to watch another country write the rules governing assets that Americans invented. We are going to pass the CLARITY Act.” — Senator Cynthia Lummis (X, @SenLummis, June 8, 2026)
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated on July 21 that the bill was at the “one-yard line”—an American expression for being very close to the finish line. However, Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Ruben Gallego—the two Democrats who voted in favor in committee in May—have not confirmed their votes for the floor, with Alsobrooks citing financial crime enforcement issues as “unresolved matters.” Senators Mark Warner and Catherine Cortez Masto have conditioned their votes on the approval of public safety agencies regarding rules for decentralized finance (DeFi—financial systems operating without traditional banks or intermediaries) platforms—an endorsement that has not yet arrived.
The market has lowered its expectations. Polymarket projects a 33% chance of approval in 2026. Galaxy Digital, which had made a $10 million institutional bet on approval, revised its estimate to 30%. Analyst Brian Gardner of Stifel put it precisely: if approval does not come before the end of July, the outlook deteriorates materially. The next step is for Leader Thune to decide whether to formally file a cloture motion—the procedure that initiates the vote. If he does not file it by August 10, there will be no summer vote. The next realistic window would be November, during the "lame duck" period following the midterm elections.
The long-term risk of failing to pass the bill is clear: the joint guidance published in March 2026 by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC—the U.S. securities regulator) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC—the U.S. derivatives regulator)—which classified 16 types of digital assets—could be revoked by any future administration without requiring Congressional approval. A law would be permanent; administrative guidance is not.
At BBChain, compliance is a competitive advantage. Regardless of the outcome in the coming weeks, the market is already operating under the proposed rules. Those who built the regulatory framework prior to the law’s enactment will not need to change anything when it arrives; they will simply scale up.
The European Parliament held its plenary vote on the digital euro legal framework in July 2026, formally kicking off the trilogues—the process in which the Parliament, the European Commission, and member state governments negotiate the final text of a European law. European leaders aim to conclude these negotiations by the end of 2026 so that the European Central Bank (ECB) can meet its schedule to issue the digital euro in 2029.
While the legislative process moves forward, the private market isn't waiting. Qivalis—a consortium of 37 European banks from 15 countries, including BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit, and BBVA—is awaiting a license from the Dutch Central Bank to operate as an electronic money issuer, with a launch planned for the second half of 2026. By June 2026, the monthly volume of euro-denominated stablecoins had already surpassed €777 million—a more than tenfold increase since January. However, dollar-denominated stablecoins still account for about 98% of the $320 billion global market.
“Frankfurt isn't losing a technology race. It's losing a standards race—and standards, once set, are much harder to displace than code.” — Forbes, June 4, 2026
The Forbes quote sums up what Europe is facing: every month the digital euro spends in legislative negotiations is a month in which private euro stablecoins—such as Monerium’s EURe, which processed over €6 billion in 2025, and Qivalis’s upcoming stablecoin—establish the conventions for how a euro token functions and moves. The ECB may have the best technological architecture, but the market will have adapted to existing conventions by the time the digital euro arrives. Regulated blockchain means efficiency combined with trust. The ECB knows this. The question is whether it can get there before the private market sets the rules of the game without it.
MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho Bank—Japan’s three largest banks by assets—have announced plans to jointly issue Japanese yen-denominated stablecoins during the 2026 fiscal year. The three banks have been conducting pilot tests with the FSA since November 2025, focusing on the settlement of tokenized assets and cross-border payments. A joint advisory body will be established to study operational models. Japan is adopting a "bank-first" approach: only banks, authorized brokerages, and certain fund transfer service providers may issue stablecoins, ensuring integration into the existing prudential supervision system.
On July 1, 2026, Bank of Korea Governor Shin Hyun-song presented a formal proposal at the ECB Forum in Sintra, Portugal: a "unified ledger" model—a digital platform where different types of money and financial assets coexist and settle directly—in which institutional digital money and private commercial bank deposits would settle on the same infrastructure, anchored by central bank trust. The proposal positions this model as an alternative that strengthens the public monetary system, rather than making way for private stablecoins to take over the settlement function.
In Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) confirmed to the Legislative Council that two regulated stablecoins—from HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial, licensed in April 2026—are expected to launch later this semester. The HKMA continues to evaluate other candidates from the 36 applications received, though the total number of licenses is expected to remain limited, even in future rounds.
On June 26, 2026, during a meeting with associations representing crypto-asset companies, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) reignited the debate regarding the foreign exchange treatment of virtual assets by adopting two measures that directly impact crypto-asset operations: the suspension of structures used by investment funds to import virtual assets and a proposal for a precautionary hold of up to 24 hours on crypto transfers sent abroad or to self-custody wallets. The measure applies to transactions valued at US$ 10,000 or more—whether in a single transfer or as the aggregate of transactions by the same client on the same day. The deadline for associations to submit feedback to the BCB was July 2, 2026, with implementation scheduled for October.
The BCB’s rationale mirrors the logic behind Resolutions 519, 520, and 521: once funds leave the regulated perimeter, monitoring becomes more difficult. The hold of up to 24 hours would serve as a verification period prior to release—not a ban, but a precautionary window for compliance checks, with the possibility of early release if the institution deems the transaction safe based on its internal risk policies. ABcripto (the Brazilian Association of the Cryptoeconomy) formally responded to the BCB requesting the suspension of the proposal, arguing that the hold would eliminate the primary advantage of stablecoins—near-instant settlement—and could drive users to migrate to foreign exchanges and decentralized finance platforms beyond the regulator's reach. Figures released by the Ministry of Finance in early July 2026, based on data from the Federal Revenue Service, explain the Central Bank of Brazil's (BCB) actions: cumulative crypto-asset transactions in Brazil totaled approximately R$ 1.58 trillion between August 2019 and December 2025. Of this total, R$ 1.13 trillion—72%—involved stablecoins. In practical terms, one trillion reais flowed through a channel where the traditional financial system earns no spread, the Central Bank cannot monitor foreign exchange in real-time, and the tax authority plays catch-up on reporting.
The data also highlights a point of regulatory tension that lacks a clear resolution: for the Federal Revenue Service, a stablecoin is a crypto-asset—declared under a specific code in the "Assets and Rights" section of tax filings, with capital gains taxed under general rules. For the BCB, however, the conversion between the real and a foreign-currency-backed stablecoin is treated as a foreign exchange transaction. Two different classifications coexist for the same asset—and this overlap demands the attention of anyone handling significant volumes in the Brazilian market.
Against this backdrop, B3 (Brazil’s stock exchange) reaffirmed at Expert XP 2026 the launch of its real-backed stablecoin later in 2026; it is positioned as settlement infrastructure for tokenized assets operating within the regulatory perimeter of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil (CVM) and the BCB. In August, Blockchain.RIO 2026 will take place on the 12th and 13th at ExpoRio, featuring 13 content tracks covering regulation, tokenization, and stablecoins—including StableCon Brazil.
At BBChain, compliance is a competitive advantage. Brazil now has a trillion reasons to regulate stablecoins thoroughly. And the Federal Revenue Service’s figures prove that the market is already there—regardless of whether the regulatory framework is ready. 🌎 Latin America — US$ 324 billion in stablecoins in 2025. The region is moving toward adopting stablecoins as a financial standard.
Latin America processed US$324 billion in stablecoin transactions in 2025—an 89% increase compared to the previous year—according to the report The Stablecoins Surge by OpenTrade. Brazil alone accounts for US$89 billion of this total. USDT dominates with a 68% share of the regional market. Seventy-five percent of Latin American institutional investors already allocate funds to stablecoins.
The driving force remains structural: an annual $142 billion remittance market rapidly moving away from traditional transfers in favor of blockchain rails, and economies plagued by chronic inflation—such as Argentina, with its 120% annual rate—that already use stablecoins as a practical substitute for physical dollars.
Experts project that stablecoins could become the dominant financial standard in Latin America within five years.
Ten countries already have some form of regulation for virtual assets. Brazil leads the way with the region's most comprehensive framework. Colombia, Peru, Panama, and Uruguay are still drafting their laws regarding Virtual Asset Service Providers. In Peru, the deadline
for compliance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF—the body that sets global anti-money laundering standards) "Travel Rule" is August 2026. The rule requires any company providing digital asset services to transmit information
regarding the sender and recipient of transactions exceeding certain thresholds—the same standard Brazil has already implemented.
Frictionless integration is the future of the financial system. And Latin America is already building that future—with or without the backing of local regulators.
Ten days. That is how much time remains before the US Congress goes into recess. The CLARITY
Act will either pass or fail during this window—and the market has already begun preparing for both scenarios. But while Washington deliberates, Tokyo makes announcements, Amsterdam issues licenses, and São Paulo builds. Digital money isn't waiting for any Congress.
— André Carneiro, CEO of BBChain
Sources for this edition:
Solana Compass — Bessent says CLARITY Act is at the ‘1-yard line’, 21 jul 2026 https://solanacompass.com/news/bessent-says-clarity-act-is-at-the-1-yard-line-as-senate-eyes-vote-this-week
CryptoTimes — CLARITY Act Timeline: Senate vote, August deadline, 24 jul 2026 https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/05/14/clarity-act-vote-timeline-what-happens-next/
Tech-Insider — CLARITY Act Status 2026: Where Crypto Regulation Stands, 24 jul 2026 https://tech-insider.org/clarity-act-2026-status/
Disruption Banking — CLARITY Act Text Drops: No Democrats on Board and 60 Votes to Find, 17 jul 2026 https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2026/07/17/clarity-act-text-drops-today-no-democrats-on-board-and-60-votes-to-find/
TechTimes — CLARITY Act Heads to Federal Hall With Senate Vote in Doubt, 15 jul 2026 https://www.techtimes.com/articles/320563/20260715/clarity-act-heads-federal-hall-senate-vote-doubt-after-ethics-impasse.htm
Crypto.news — CLARITY Act faces Senate vote despite 60-vote gap, 25 jul 2026 https://crypto.news/clarity-act-faces-senate-vote-despite-60-vote-gap/
Latham & Watkins — US Crypto Policy Tracker: Legislative Developments, jul 2026 https://www.lw.com/en/us-crypto-policy-tracker/legislative-developments
CaixaBank / Qivalis — Euro stablecoin launch H2 2026, 26 jun 2026 https://www.caixabank.com/en/headlines/news/qivalis-joint-venture-of-a-european-banking-consortium-to-launch-euro-stablecoin-in-the-second-half-of-2026
Forbes — Euro Stablecoins Are Scaling While The Digital Euro Waits On Brussels, 4 jun 2026 https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/06/04/euro-stablecoins-are-scaling-while-the-digital-euro-waits-on-brussels/
WuBlockchain — Japanese Banks to Issue Stablecoin, HK Regulated Stablecoin Coming Mid-year, 14 jun 2026 https://wublock.substack.com/p/asias-weekly-top10-crypto-news-japanese
Asia Stablecoin Newsletter — Bank of Korea Governor Shin presents Unified Ledger at ECB Forum, 1 jul 2026 https://asiastablecoin.substack.com/p/the-next-chapter-for-stablecoin-asa-4af
HKMA — Granting of stablecoin issuer licences (HSBC e Anchorpoint), 10 abr 2026 https://www.hkma.gov.hk/eng/news-and-media/press-releases/2026/04/20260410-4/
Spark — Asia’s Stablecoin Strategy: Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, 31 mai 2026 https://www.spark.money/research/stablecoin-asia-market-overview
Exame — BC propõe retenção de transações com stablecoins por 24 horas, 26 jun 2026 https://exame.com/future-of-money/bc-propoe-retencao-de-transacoes-com-stablecoins-por-24-horas-e-da-ate-2-de-julho-para-manifestacoes/
CoinTelegraph Brasil — Banco Central quer reter stablecoins por 24h antes de liberar, 26 jun 2026 https://cointelegraph.com.br/news/central-bank-orders-hold-stablecoins-for-24-hours
Exame — ABcripto pede que BC suspenda proposta de reter stablecoins por 24 horas, jul 2026 https://exame.com/future-of-money/abcripto-pede-que-bc-suspenda-a-proposta-de-reter-stablecoins-por-24-horas/
Blue Consult — Trava de 24 horas nas stablecoins: o que muda, jul 2026 https://blueconsult.com.br/trava-24-horas-stablecoins/
Let’s Money — B3 prepara stablecoin de real para tokenizar ativos (Expert XP 2026), jul 2026 https://www.letsmoney.com.br/noticias/b3-b3rl-stablecoin-real-tokenizacao/
CoinTelegraph Brasil — Blockchain.RIO 2026: evento principal nos dias 12 e 13 de agosto, 15 jul 2026 https://cointelegraph.com.br/news/from-pix-to-stablecoins
BPMoney — Stablecoins podem virar padrão na América Latina em 5 anos, 23 mai 2026 https://bpmoney.com.br/mercado/cripto/stablecoins-padrao-america-latina-5-anos
MEXC Blog — Stablecoins in Latin America 2026: US$ 142B remittance market https://blog.mexc.com/news/stablecoins-in-latin-america-2026-142b-remittance-market-drives-adoption-boom/
Livecoins — Stablecoins se tornam infraestrutura financeira global, 13 jun 2026 https://livecoins.com.br/stablecoins-vao-alem-do-segmento-cripto-e-se-tornam-infraestrutura-financeira-global/
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