The EU member country Lithuania has decided to take a more severe take on its cryptocurrency regulations. The latest news from the region postulates that the financial regulators in the region are working to ensure that all anonymous cryptocurrency digital wallet addresses are banned. With this new stance, all the non-custodial wallet addresses will also become illegal in the region.
EU’s New Crypto Regulations
The government of Lithuania is taking these steps in anticipation of the stringent financial policies regarding crypto regulations by the EU authorities. The officials in Europe have claimed that the steps have been taken as a preventive measure against financial crimes such as money laundering.
Furthermore, the regulators in the EU are also mulling over the possibility of Russian elites finding a way around the financial restrictions imposed with the help of cryptocurrencies.
The Ministry of Finance in Lithuania has recently passed some legal amendment proposals to emphasize AML (Anti Money Laundering) compliance among the crypto organizations. Furthermore, the Finance minister’s office has also introduced some suggestions to address the matter of terror financing through cryptocurrencies.
The legal amendments will be sent to Seimas, the unicameral legislative body of the country, for consideration for the next phase. If Seimas passes the amendments, all the unnamed cryptocurrency accounts and wallets will be outlawed.
Starting next year, the centralized regulators of the European nation will make it mandatory for cryptocurrency organizations to apply for registration as a corporate body with an accredited capital requirement of 125 thousand euros.
The government of Lithuania will also mandate the qualification of the cryptocurrency enterprises in the region by requiring the appointment of local citizens at the top positions. The government officials recently claimed that the rapidly changing geopolitical conditions around the world call for edits in the regulatory infrastructure for digital currencies.
Finance Minister, Gintare Skaiste, issued a statement recently claiming that the government of Lithuania is working to keep up with the regulatory guidelines of the EU agenda. It is worth noting that recently the neighbouring nation Estonia has also adopted a more austere stance on cryptocurrency legislature. Interestingly, the crypto sector in Estonia saw exponential growth in the crypto enterprises going from 8 to 188 between 2020 and 2021.
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