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2026-10-28 17:27:01 UTC

Brazilian Banking Giant Itaú Formalizes Crypto Role as Brazil Closes Its Licensing Window
Bitcoin Magazine
Brazilian Banking Giant Itaú Formalizes Crypto Role as Brazil Closes Its Licensing Window
Itaú Unibanco, the largest private bank in Brazil, has formalized its role as a cryptocurrency service provider before the Central Bank of Brazil. The filing covers intermediation and custody of crypto assets, the same activities the regulator assigns to brokerage firms, according to local reports. The news arrives as the country’s crypto sector faces a compressed timeline to obtain licenses.
Itaú’s move places the bank inside a licensing framework that did not exist a year ago. Brazil’s central bank requires every company that holds, moves, or trades crypto for customers to register as a regulated provider. By filing, Itaú tells the market that it intends to be one of them.
For Brazilian users, the change matters most for custody. A provider that holds crypto for clients must keep those assets separate from the firm’s own money, meet minimum capital requirements, and follow the same governance and anti-money laundering standards that apply to securities brokers.
Clients of an authorized bank gain a clearer legal footing than clients of an unregulated app or an offshore exchange. For the bank, the filing is a commitment. A regulated crypto operation carries compliance costs, audit obligations, and reporting duties that smaller competitors may struggle to meet.
The move also signals that Brazil’s biggest lenders plan to keep crypto inside the domestic financial system rather than leave it to foreign platforms.
Itau’s embrace of bitcoin and crypto
Itaú’s crypto story started before the new rules. The bank announced plans for crypto custody in 2022, when it was building a tokenization platform. In late 2025, it began letting retail clients buy and sell bitcoin through its investment app, íon. The crypto assets traded on íon are held in custody by Itaú itself, which made the bank’s position an operational one long before it became a regulatory one.
The regulatory backdrop came in 2025 and early 2026, when the central bank published Resolutions 519, 520, and 521. They created a new license category called Sociedades Prestadoras de Serviços de Ativos Virtuais, or SPSAVs, and the rules took effect February 2, 2026.
The framework sorts providers into three categories: intermediaries, custodians, and brokers. It requires formal segregation of client and company assets, sets minimum capital levels, and extends the customer protection, governance, internal control, security, and anti-money laundering rules that already govern banks and brokers.
Resolution 521 brought crypto transactions into the foreign-exchange regime. Transfers with unauthorized counterparties face a $100,000 cap, which limits how crypto moves across borders outside regulated channels.
Companies already operating when the regime took effect had to file for authorization within a transition period.
That timing is why Itaú’s filing reads as a response to a pressure point, not a routine update.
Stricter standards follow. On July 1, 2026, the central bank approved tighter rules. Beginning in 2027, providers must meet financial security requirements similar to those for securities brokers and distributors.
The regulator also barred institutions in Segment 5, the simplified-rules category for smaller banks, from offering virtual asset services. That decision pushes crypto activity toward larger, better-capitalized players, the group Itaú belongs to.
This post Brazilian Banking Giant Itaú Formalizes Crypto Role as Brazil Closes Its Licensing Window first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/news/brazilian-banking-giant-itau-crypto
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2026-10-28 16:16:53 UTC

Bitwise Raises Bitcoin Target to $1.6 Million as Institutions Keep Buying
Bitcoin Magazine
Bitwise Raises Bitcoin Target to $1.6 Million as Institutions Keep Buying
Bitwise Asset Management this week released its 2027 Bitcoin Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions, raising its 2036 base-case price target for bitcoin to $1,599,766 from $1.3 million a year earlier.
The forecast implies a 34.3% compound annual growth rate from the roughly $83,557 price the firm used as of September 30, 2026. Bitwise’s bear case is $130,686 and its bull case is $3.67 million.
The base case rests on three arguments. Institutional investors will keep adding bitcoin to portfolios. New supply stays fixed on a predictable schedule. Rising government debt will push investors toward assets that cannot be printed.
Institutional investors love bitcoin
Bitwise estimates that institutions controlling about $147 trillion could allocate 1% to 5% of their portfolios to bitcoin, which the firm says would mean $1.5 trillion to $7.4 trillion of purchases. The network issues about $14 billion in new coins per year, and Bitwise argues that gap will push prices higher.
Institutional plumbing is already expanding. U.S. spot bitcoin ETPs hold about $108 billion, according to the report. Banks and brokerages are building custody and trading services, and a recent report describes sovereign wealth funds and family offices buying during the 2026 decline.
Regulators are also moving. A Federal Reserve capital proposal aimed at easing bank custody rules could widen access for large institutions, if adopted.
The past year tested that thesis. Bitcoin fell 53.4% from its October 2025 peak of $126,080 to a June 30, 2026 low of $58,717. Bitwise calls that drawdown the shallowest in the asset’s history. Prior cycle declines were 77%, 84% and 86%.
Whether the shallow decline signals a new pattern or a pause is less settled. Bitwise expects the four-year cycle to weaken as the investor base broadens. Others see the cycle still at work.
VanEck argues the current slump follows the historical halving pattern, and Fidelity has pointed to a possible floor around November 2026 if past timing holds. NYDIG has said a repeat of earlier bear markets could push the cycle low near $38,000 to $39,000. Cathie Wood has argued the market is nearly through the downturn. Each view carries a different price floor and timeline.
Bitcoin’s volatility
Volatility is the other pillar of the forecast. Bitwise models a 27.8% average volatility over the decade, the midpoint between today’s level and its 2036 expectation. Grayscale’s research head recently put one-year volatility at 43%, against a 10-year average of 64%, and lower than the volatility of 19% of S&P 500 companies. Charles Schwab’s research found the asset remains prone to sharp drawdowns despite the lower readings. A Deutsche Bank analyst has described the trend as a sign of a maturing market.
Bitwise also reports that bitcoin’s correlation with gold reached a record 0.58 in September 2026. The firm expects that relationship to deepen, which positions bitcoin as a store-of-value asset. That link cuts both ways. If gold weakens, bitcoin may lose the support it gained from the same investor demand. Gemini has predicted that at least one country will shift part of its gold reserves into bitcoin in 2026, a forecast that has yet to materialize.
The report is candid about what could go wrong. Bitcoin’s track record is short. Its software was developed in 2008 and 2009, trading began on public exchanges in 2010, the first institutional product with bitcoin exposure launched in 2014, and spot ETPs arrived in 2024.
Bitwise writes that forecasts built heavily on history carry uncertainty because future returns may differ from the past. Regulation is a second concern. The Clarity Act’s failure in Congress, which the report traces to Democratic concerns about ethics provisions, shows that progress can stall, even as the firm argues recent advances are unlikely to be rolled back.
Technology is a third. Quantum computing, and mathematical advances accelerated by AI, could threaten the cryptography that secures bitcoin wallets. Bitwise says the network will need a major upgrade at some point, and holders who fail to move funds to new addresses could be exposed. The developers have made progress over the past year, the report says, but major issues remain unresolved.
Bitcoin’s price is near $80,500.
This post Bitwise Raises Bitcoin Target to $1.6 Million as Institutions Keep Buying first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/bitwise-raises-bitcoin-target
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