The Central Bank of Brazil said Monday it will unveil a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies by the end of this year.

Brazil’s central monetary authority said in a statement Monday that the development of its crypto regulatory framework will be divided into several phases. The staged rollout effectively delays the South American country's plans to regulate its burgeoning digital assets industry, a move that would provide much-needed clarity to token creators and virtual asset service providers (VASP).   

Brazil has been ramping up its push toward regulating crypto in the past two years. In 2022, the country's lawmakers passed a law granting the Central Bank of Brazil authority over digital asset regulation. Last December, banking officials launched a public consultation on the matter.

Daren Li, 41, was arrested on April 12 at Atlanta’s airport, and Yicheng Zhang, 38, was arrested on Thursday in Los Angeles for their alleged involvement, the Justice Department said in a statement on Friday.

“The fraud scheme involved more than $73 million laundered through U.S. financial institutions to bank accounts in The Bahamas, and converted to the virtual asset USDT, or Tether,” the DOJ said.

Li, Zhang and others allegedly controlled an "international syndicate" that laundered funds made through "pig butchering" crypto investment scams, according to the statement. Pig butchering scams involve scammers gaining victims' trust, convincing them to give them large amounts of money and then running off with it. Lawmakers and regulators have raised concerns over those types of scams over the past few months.

Standard Chartered Bank’s head of FX Research and Digital Assets Research, Geoff Kendrick, believes that a victory by former U.S. President Donald Trump in November’s U.S. presidential election would be “bitcoin positive.”

We think that a second Trump administration would be broadly positive via a more supportive regulatory environment. Trump initially opposed crypto and bitcoin during his presidency. However, he has launched several non-fungible tokens (NFTs) since leaving office. Last month, he described bitcoin as “an additional form of currency,” noting that the crypto has taken on a life of its own. In addition, he has acknowledged bitcoin’s popularity.

Gary Gensler, Chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), defended the agency’s attention to the crypto industry in an interview, asserting that it’s not an undue focus but rather a response to the prevalence of scams and frauds within the sector.

Gensler emphasized that while crypto represents a small portion of the financial markets, it disproportionally contributes to issues such as scams and frauds, attracting significant media attention.