B3 To Launch Bitcoin-Linked Contracts As Brazil Bans Prediction Markets

Brazil has drawn a regulatory line that simultaneously shuts out global prediction market platforms and opens the door for its own exchange to dominate the space. On April 28, 2026, B3, Brazil’s main stock exchange and Latin America’s largest financial market infrastructure operator, launched six “Event Contracts,” including instruments directly tied to Bitcoin price movements. 

The launch came just three days after Brazil’s top monetary policy body, the Conselho Monetário Nacional (CMN), published a resolution banning a wide category of prediction market derivatives. The timing was not a coincidence.

What Are These Bitcoin-Linked Contracts?

B3’s Event Contracts are financial instruments that allow investors to take positions on whether an asset’s price will move above or below a set threshold within a defined period. Three of the six contracts launched are tied to Bitcoin, with the others linked to the Ibovespa index and the Brazilian real. 

Contracts are priced at a maximum of 100 Brazilian reais (approximately $19) and are cash-settled only, meaning no actual Bitcoin changes hands. Access is restricted to professional investors holding at least 10 million reais (roughly $1.9 million) in assets, or those with a CVM technical certification from Brazil’s securities regulator.

B3 already offered Bitcoin futures since April 2024. These Event Contracts are a structural step further, borrowing the same binary settlement mechanics used by platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket, but within a fully regulated, exchange-listed framework.

The Regulation That Changed Everything

CMN Resolution 5,298, published on April 24, 2026, is the pivot point of this entire story. The resolution bans derivatives tied to sports events, online games, political outcomes, electoral results, and entertainment events. Enforcement kicks in on May 4, with the CVM delegated authority to oversee compliance.

Crucially, the resolution explicitly carves out derivatives tied to economic and financial variables, the exact category B3’s Bitcoin and currency contracts fall under. This is not a loophole. It is a deliberate policy distinction that separates regulated financial speculation from unregulated event betting.

On the same day the resolution was published, Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL) moved quickly. Twenty-eight prediction market platforms were blocked at the network level, including Polymarket and Kalshi. Brazilian authorities confirmed further blocks would follow for any platform operating outside the CMN’s permitted scope. Kalshi, which had entered Brazil in January 2026 via a partnership with brokerage XP International, was among those cut off.

What This Means for the Global Prediction Market Industry

The global prediction market industry has been on a significant growth trajectory, with platforms like Polymarket recording tens of billions in notional volume. Brazil was an attractive market. That door is now effectively closed for foreign platforms operating without local authorisation.

B3 enters this vacuum with a significant structural advantage: it is already regulated, already trusted by institutional investors, and now explicitly operating within the permitted category. The exchange has also separately disclosed plans to launch a tokenization platform and a stablecoin before the end of 2026, signalling a broader push into digital asset infrastructure.

What Brazil has essentially done is run a regulatory clearance operation. By banning foreign competitors and simultaneously authorising a domestic exchange to offer similar instruments under a different legal classification, the government has consolidated the prediction market space under its own oversight, and handed B3 a near-monopoly on regulated event-linked financial contracts.

Can Retail Investors in Brazil Access These Contracts?

Not directly, at least not yet. The current access threshold, 10 million reais in assets or a CVM certification, puts these instruments firmly in the institutional and high-net-worth category. Whether B3 or regulators eventually lower the bar for retail participation remains to be seen.

Why the Rest of the World Is Watching

Brazil’s move reflects a regulatory approach that more countries are likely to consider: permit crypto-linked financial derivatives under securities law, ban event-based speculation that competes with licensed gambling frameworks, and block foreign platforms that operate in a grey zone between the two. It is a clean framework, and it works precisely because it does not treat all prediction markets the same way.

For the broader crypto market, Bitcoin’s inclusion as an underlying asset in Brazil’s first federally regulated prediction market is another signal of its maturation as a financial instrument, one that regulators are increasingly comfortable putting inside formal market structures, not just tolerating on the edges.

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