RESUMO O Banco Central no Brasil e uma autarquia do governo federal que detem o monopolio da emissao de moeda. Ao contrario da maioria dos paises desenvolvidos, onde o banco central e de propriedade privada, no Brasil e em outros paises com desenvolvimento tardio, ele e publico. Ocorre, porem, que os bancos centrais publicos operam praticamente do mesmo modo que os privados, em especial no tocante a emissao de moeda que, por meio de artificios legais, e um monopolio privado em quase todo o mundo. Esse trabalho tem como objetivo analisar a dicotomia entre o publico e o privado, a partir da analise do amparo legal da emissao de moeda no Brasil. A analise aponta o fato que o grau de independencia adquirida pelo Banco Central do Brasil guarda relacao com pressoes auferidas pelas elites economicas (beneficiarias dos titulos da divida publica) sobre as elites politicas. Palavras-Chave : Banco Central do Brasil. Amparo Legal. Divida Publica. Politica Monetaria. ABSTRACT The Central Bank of Brazil is a federal government autarky that has the issuance of currency monopoly. Opposed to most developed countries, where the central bank is a private property, it is public in Brazil and other late developed countries. However, the central banks of the public sector operate practically in the same way as the private ones, in particular as regards the currency issuance which, by means of legal tricks, is a private monopoly in almost the whole world. This work aims to analyze the dichotomy between public and private, from the analysis of the legal support of currency issuance in Brazil. The analysis points to the fact that the degree of independence gained by the Central Bank of Brazil is related to pressures from economic elites (beneficiaries of public debt securities) on the political elites. Key words : Central Bank of Brazil. Legal support. Public debt. Monetary Policy.