Spanish Regulators Add Several Crypto Platforms To Warning List

By Rishma Banerjee

The National Securities Market Commission of Spain, as per reports made available on the 14th of January has declared that several cryptocurrency exchanges and companies working with forex will be deemed illegal, effective immediately, and will not be authorized to function in the country.

The Spanish CNMV, has added 23 such companies to their warning list of unauthorized entities. This list essentially composes of what the regulators like to refer to as financial “beach bars”, which is a local jargon for businesses which are run badly. While some of these companies work with cryptocurrencies, most of them appear to be related to forex and CFD trading.

Though the reasons vary, quite a bit, from company to company, the most common one is a lack of a license to operate on the national territory of Spain. Some of the companies which made it to the list are Blonde Bear OÜ, also called Black Parrot Ltd and Bron Fox Ltd, which is also called Dax300.

This latest move by the securities watchdog is not a sign that Spain is against crypto, and despite this setback, due to these entities with questionable origins or motives, the general consensus is that the country is slowly but steadily inching towards greater acceptance of cryptocurrencies. This has also been made clear by the recent declaration that Spain signed with 7 other nations of the European Union in December.

The declaration was one which spoke about the promotion of  Distributed Ledger Technology within the EU region. It was initiated by Malta but six other nations decided to sign on. The region is significant not for only being in the EU but for making up a huge chunk of the global economy. Greece, Spin, Cyprus, Portugal, France, Italy, and Malta signed this declaration.