Key Takeaways:
- B3 launches six Event Contracts on April 27, with bitcoin among three underlying assets.
- CMN Resolution 5,298 bans sports and political prediction derivatives starting May 4.
- ANATEL has blocked 28 prediction market platforms including Polymarket and Kalshi.
Brazil Draws a Regulatory Line Between Asset and Event Derivatives
B3’s six Event Contracts are tied to spot and mini futures movements in the Ibovespa index, the Brazilian real, and bitcoin, with prices capped at 100 Brazilian reais (around $19) and cash settlement only. The contracts rely on the same mechanical structure used by U.S.-based prediction market operators Kalshi and Polymarket, and they have been authorized by Brazil’s securities regulator, the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM). They are restricted to professional investors with at least 10 million reais (approximately $1.9 million) in assets or holding CVM technical certification.
The launch lands three days after the Conselho Monetário Nacional (CMN), Brazil’s top monetary policy body, published Resolution CMN nº 5,298 on April 24. The resolution prohibits derivatives based on real sports events, online games, and political, electoral, social, cultural, or entertainment events, while preserving derivatives tied to economic and financial variables. The rules take effect May 4, with enforcement and complementary regulation delegated to the CVM.
At a press conference the same day, Finance Minister Dario Durigan and Civil House Minister Miriam Belchior announced that Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL) had blocked access to 28 prediction market platforms operating without authorization, with Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA) head Régis Dudena confirming further blocks would follow for any platforms outside the CMN’s permitted scope.
The resolution explicitly cites Brazil’s federal sports betting framework as the legal basis for distinguishing licensed fixed-odds betting from event-based derivatives. The Instituto Brasileiro de Jogo Responsável, an industry trade body for licensed Brazilian operators, endorsed the resolution the same day, framing it as preventing “regulatory arbitrage” by foreign platforms attempting to operate as financial instruments rather than licensed gambling operators.
Founded in 2017 from the merger of BM&FBovespa and Cetip, B3 (Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão) is Brazil’s main stock exchange and the largest financial market infrastructure operator in Latin America. B3 already offers Bitcoin futures contracts, launched in April 2024, alongside derivatives tied to equities, currencies, commodities, and interest rates.
This launch is the first federally regulated prediction market in Brazil per the company’s own framing and arrives precisely on the right side of the new line. According to Luiz Masagão, B3’s Executive Vice President of Products and Clients, the contracts form part of a broader strategy to modernize the country’s derivatives market, with B3 already offering instruments linked to central bank decisions in other jurisdictions.
The exchange has separately disclosed plans to launch a tokenization platform and stablecoin before year-end, Bloomberg reported earlier this month. The launch comes amid a global prediction market boom, with Kalshi having entered Brazil in January via a partnership with brokerage XP International. With Polymarket, Kalshi, and 26 other foreign platforms now blocked at the network level, B3 enters a domestic market the government has cleared on its behalf, with tens of billions in notional volume up for grabs.
