Brazil’s real was priced about 10% lower against the dollar in futures and options trading on Sunday night, hours after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the runoff of 25 October against Flavio Bolsonaro. The move happened on the CME in Chicago while Brazil’s own exchange, B3, and the spot currency market were closed. Spot trading opens later today, Monday 26 October, at 09:00 Brasilia time (12:00 UTC). On Brazilian crypto platforms, tether (USDT) traded at R$5.42, according to Livecoins, against a last official rate of about R$4.98 on Friday.
None of these prices is yet the real’s spot rate. They are what traders paid on the few venues open on a Sunday night, with thin volumes and no way to arbitrage against the domestic market. This article was written at about 07:00 UTC, five hours before B3 opened, and it reports no spot move.
The electoral court’s count, as reported by outlets with 99.99% of ballots tallied, gives Lula about 51.8% of valid votes and Flavio Bolsonaro about 48.2%, a margin of roughly 4.4 million votes. The results are provisional until the formal certification.
Brazil election result: Lula wins a fourth term from behind
According to the Rio Times, Lula received 51.79% of valid votes (64.26 million) and Flavio Bolsonaro 48.21% (59.83 million), a gap of 4,429,907 votes with 99.99% counted. Bitcoin.com News, in a piece timestamped 10:11 PM EDT on 25 October (02:11 UTC on 26 October), gave 51.78% and 48.22%. Trading Economics and Business Today, citing the electoral court, rounded both to 51.8% and 48.2%.
The result reverses the first round. On 4 October, Flavio Bolsonaro led with 47.03% against 45.16% for Lula, according to Bitcoin.com News. According to Trading Economics, Lula is the first candidate since 1989 to win a runoff after losing the first round.
The electoral court’s formal declaration is still to come, and the winner’s diploma is due by 18 December, the Rio Times reports. Lula is due to take office on 5 January 2027, the same outlet says. Congress will not be easy for the president: Flavio Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (PL) is the largest party in the Chamber of Deputies with 121 of 513 seats, the same outlet says.
Flavio Bolsonaro says he will ask the courts to annul the vote
Flavio Bolsonaro has called for the result to be annulled, Business Today and Trading Economics reported on 26 October. According to Business Today, he argues that the Supreme Court changed the rules by ordering a last-minute extension of voting hours. CNBC ran the story under a headline saying Bolsonaro “reportedly refuses to concede”. No court had ruled on any request at the time of writing, and the sources we read did not report a response from the electoral court. The Rio Times, writing earlier, had found no public statement from him or his campaign.
The real fell about 10% on CME futures while the spot market was shut
The last spot references come from Friday 23 October. CNN Brasil put the dollar’s close at R$4.9896, Livecoins at R$4.993 with a last quote of R$4.9791, and the Rio Times at about R$4.98. After the first round, the dollar had fallen 4.12% to R$5.00 in a day, CNN Brasil noted.
On Sunday evening, the only place to trade the currency in size was the CME. The Rio Times, in an article published at 8:55 p.m. New York time on Sunday (00:55 UTC Monday), reported dollar futures up about 10% and the November real contract down about 9%. CNN Brasil said CME monthly real options were down 10.17% at about 21:58 Brasilia time (00:58 UTC), with a worst point of minus 12%. Livecoins, in its article timestamped 23:01 Brasilia time on Sunday (02:01 UTC Monday), wrote that the real was down more than 11% in CME futures, implying a dollar near R$5.50 for Monday, and that the implied rate had touched R$5.52.
Business Today, relaying Bloomberg on Monday, reported a CME contract pointing to R$5.60 per dollar, a move of more than 10% from Friday’s close, and noted that the contract does not directly reflect the currency’s actual market price. Bloomberg’s own headline said Brazilian markets were bracing for a rout. The Rio Times also warned that Brazilian markets had not confirmed the move.
Brazilian shares fell on the venues open overnight. The NEXT Funds Ibovespa Linked ETF, listed in Tokyo, fell more than 11% at the Tokyo open, according to the Rio Times, and 13% according to Livecoins. Business Today, citing Bloomberg, said an ETF tracking Brazilian shares lost as much as 16% in Japan, its steepest intraday drop since 2020. In New York, a Brazilian equity ETF fell 18.6%, Livecoins reported, without naming the fund.
| Instrument (Sunday 25 to Monday 26 October) | Move or level | Time | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spot dollar, last close before the vote | R$4.9896 (last quote R$4.9791) | Friday 23 October | CNN Brasil; Livecoins |
| CME dollar futures | about +10% | reported 00:55 UTC Monday | Rio Times |
| CME November real contract | about -9% | reported 00:55 UTC Monday | Rio Times |
| CME monthly real options | -10.17% (worst -12%) | about 00:58 UTC Monday | CNN Brasil |
| CME-implied dollar | near R$5.50, touching R$5.52 | article timestamped 02:01 UTC Monday | Livecoins |
| CME contract, per Bloomberg | R$5.60 per dollar | Monday | Business Today |
| USDT on Brazilian crypto platforms | R$5.42 | article timestamped 02:01 UTC Monday (23:01 Sunday in Brasilia) | Livecoins |
| USDT, Livecoins post | R$5.23 | dated 26 October, no hour given | Livecoins |
| NEXT Funds Ibovespa ETF (Tokyo) | more than -11% at open (-13% per Livecoins); an ETF in Japan as much as -16% | Monday, Tokyo session | Rio Times; Livecoins; Business Today |
| Brazilian equity ETF in New York (not named) | -18.6% | Sunday night | Livecoins |
Two things limit what these numbers say. Sunday trading in real futures is thin, so a few orders can move the price a long way. And the CME contracts are bets on where the rate will settle, not trades in reais at a bank counter. A smaller or larger move is possible when spot trading resumes.
What investors expected before the vote
Citigroup surveyed 73 investors before the vote. Most expected the real to fall by at least 5% if Lula won, Business Today reported, and 79% expected the Ibovespa to drop more than 5%, according to Livecoins. Analysts cited by Livecoins put the dollar between R$5.30 and R$6.00 in that scenario, and Marcos Weight of Travelex Bank expected the spot dollar to open above R$5.30. The brokerage Monte Bravo projected that the Ibovespa could lose 11% in the first hour of trading, Business Today said. An analyst at Armor told Livecoins that a 10% fall, enough to trigger B3’s circuit breaker, was possible. These are their forecasts, not ours. The benchmark Selic rate stands at 14.00%, the Rio Times notes.
USDT at R$5.42: what the crypto price does and does not show
With banks and B3 shut, a Brazilian who wanted dollars on Sunday night had few options. A dollar stablecoin bought for reais on a local crypto platform was one of them, and its price moved at once. Livecoins reported in its Sunday article, timestamped 23:01 Brasilia time (02:01 UTC Monday), that USDT traded at R$5.42 on crypto platforms while B3 was closed. It did not name the platforms.
A second Livecoins item, a post on X embedded in the same article and dated 26 October with no hour we could read, gave a different price: “USDT a 5,23 apos vitoria de Lula” (USDT at R$5.23 after Lula’s victory). The two prints differ by 19 centavos. Both come from the same outlet, and neither names an exchange, a volume or an order book. They may reflect different platforms, different hours or both; the sources do not say which.
Measured against Friday’s last quote of R$4.9791, R$5.42 is about 8.9% higher and R$5.23 about 5% higher. Those percentages are our arithmetic, not a premium published by any exchange. We found no Binance or Mercado Bitcoin figure for USDT/BRL on Sunday night, so we do not report one.
The comparison that matters is with the offshore market. At R$5.42, USDT was cheaper than the R$5.50 to R$5.52 dollar implied by CME contracts in the same Livecoins article. The stablecoin did not trade at a premium to where the dollar was being priced abroad. Its gap was with a stale spot rate from Friday. Livecoins put the difference with the CME down to thin liquidity and to the impossibility of arbitrage with the official rate while B3 was closed.
USDT is a token that the company Tether issues to track the US dollar one for one. Our guide to how stablecoins work explains the mechanism, and our page on tether (USDT) covers the token itself. Using USDT as a dollar substitute in Latin America is not new: we covered a Bolivian app that lets users pay for food in USDT last week.
How big stablecoins already are in Brazil
Figures from the Receita Federal, the tax authority, show why the USDT print draws attention. Stablecoins made up 71.7% of the R$1.58 trillion in crypto operations declared between August 2019 and December 2025, about R$1.13 trillion, and roughly 80% of declared crypto volume in 2025, according to Receita data reported by the São Paulo accountants’ council CRCSP and by Monitor Mercantil. USDT alone accounted for 88.7% of stablecoin trades, about R$1.0 trillion, ahead of USDC with 7.1% and the real-backed BRZ with 3.4%.
That 88.7% is a share of stablecoin trades, not of all crypto flows. The new DeCripto reporting regime, which covers transactions from July 2026 according to CRCSP, will give the tax authority more detail on those trades.
Bitcoin traded near $79,950 at 06:55 UTC on Monday, down 0.56% over 24 hours, according to Coindaro’s market data. Its price in reais will depend on where the real settles once spot trading resumes.
Polymarket had Flavio Bolsonaro at about 80% on Sunday midday
Bitcoin.com News reported that Polymarket gave Flavio Bolsonaro 80% at 12:00 on Sunday, and that the odds flipped at 18:00, when results began to be published and Lula took the lead. The article does not state the time zone; Brasilia time is the likely reading. We could not open the Polymarket page to check the 80% figure or the market’s volume.
This is one price, at one hour, on one market. Bitcoin.com News also wrote that prediction markets had done better than polls in the first round. The last Datafolha poll before the runoff had the two candidates tied at 50% of valid votes each, according to Trading Economics. Polls did not call the winner either. Bitcoin.com News adds that prediction markets are banned in Brazil, which limits who could trade the contract from inside the country.
Our profile of Polymarket explains how its contracts are priced, and our report on the $2.7 billion bet on bitcoin contracts in a week shows where most of the platform’s volume sits today.
Brazil’s stablecoin rules: the central bank framework stays, the IOF tax is undecided
Neither finalist ran on a crypto platform. Bitnoticias wrote after the vote that Lula had presented no detailed agenda for stablecoins, bitcoin, self-custody or exchange rules, and that the central bank’s framework does not depend on who holds the presidency.
That framework is in place. The Banco Central do Brasil published Resolutions 519, 520 and 521 on 10 November 2025, and they came into force on 2 February 2026, according to the law firm Felsberg Advogados and the market association Anbima. Together they set authorisation rules for virtual asset service providers and how they operate. Resolution 521 brings virtual asset activity into Brazil’s foreign exchange law and, since 4 May 2026, requires platforms to report trades in fiat-referenced tokens such as stablecoins and their international operations, Felsberg writes. Firms already operating had 270 days from 2 February to apply for authorisation, and from 30 October 2026, this Friday, operations with unauthorised entities are prohibited, Anbima says.
The tax side is unclear. The government had prepared a draft decree that would apply the IOF, Brazil’s tax on financial and foreign exchange operations, to some crypto transactions, starting with stablecoins. On 23 March, Reuters reported that the new finance minister, Dario Durigan, was expected to delay the public consultation on it to avoid a clash with Congress in an election year, CoinDesk and InvestNews wrote. Industry groups representing more than 850 companies argue that such a tax would be illegal. We found no finance ministry document setting a rate, a scope or a date, so whether and when stablecoin purchases will pay IOF remains open.
A weaker real makes that file more sensitive. If more Brazilians buy USDT as a dollar, an IOF charge or a tighter reading of the foreign exchange rules would fall on exactly those trades.
What to watch today and this week
- B3 and the spot currency market open at 09:00 Brasilia time on Monday 26 October (12:00 UTC, 13:00 in Paris). The first spot quotes will show how much of Sunday’s futures move holds.
- The Ibovespa starts trading at 10:00 Brasilia time (13:00 UTC), according to Livecoins.
- Any statement or intervention by the central bank in the currency market, which none of our sources had reported before the open.
- Flavio Bolsonaro’s filing to annul the result, and how the courts respond.
- The US Federal Reserve decision on Wednesday 28 October at 2 p.m. ET (18:00 UTC).
- Friday 30 October, the date from which Brazilian institutions may no longer deal with crypto platforms that lack central bank authorisation, according to Anbima.
- The winner’s diploma, due by 18 December according to the Rio Times, and any decision on IOF for crypto.
Until spot trades, the 10% figure is a Sunday-night price on the CME, and R$5.42 is one outlet’s reading of USDT on unnamed Brazilian platforms.