Estonian Government Encourages Crypto In The Country

Estonia has for some time now, shown incredible support for cryptocurrency in their own country. The state has been hailed as the world’s most “digitally advanced” society. A recent fact has come to light which only stands to reaffirm this idea.

Estonia, which has adopted a progressive and encouraging stance towards cryptogcurrency, has reportedly issued over 900 licenses to cryptocurrency and blockchain-related firms in the past year alone.

(Read about South Korea’s stance on crypto)

It was the first country in Europe to legalize crypto based transactions. Despite local companies having complained, regarding the limited banking services that they are offered by Estonia’s financial institutions, the country has taken an initiative to boost this sector.

Along with the 500 licenses thay Estonia’s authorities have already issued to firms operating cryptocurrency exchanges, the country has also gladly approved and authorized 400 crypto wallet services to put their products on the Estonian market.

One great thing about Estonia is the pace at which bureaucracy functions. The Estonian Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which is the main organization that is responsible for issuing financial services-related licenses, officially requires up to 30 days to review applications for businesses. However, majority of the times, the FIU takes only about two weeks to authorize crypto firms who are looking to set up their headquarters in Estonia. This ensures that the process of obtaining regulatory approval for providing cryptocurrency-related services in Estonia, is one that is easy to follow.

Once the business has acquired a license, they are expected to start conducting their operations in a few months. If however, they fail to do that, their license may be revoked.

To get a license, the business has comply with the standard know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks.

Having acquired their license from Estonia, these companies are also eligible to conduct business in EU, since Estonia is a member of EU. If more countries consider the Estonian framework and speed up their approval process, it could really benefit the crypto market.