Estonian regulators have tightened licensing requirements for crypto firms, causing their number to drop by 80% Estonian regulators have taken a tougher stance on the crypto industry, fearing money laundering. As a result, the number of registered crypto firms in the country fell by 80%. Amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing of 15 March 2022 require companies to have significant capital reserves and real ties to Estonia. As a result of the new rules, the firms themselves revoked approximately 200 licenses. Approximately the same number were rejected by the Estonian financial intelligence unit. “During the renewal of permits, we observed situations that would surprise any supervisory authority. Suspicious circumstances in the applications sometimes indicated a connection with illegal activities,” said head of financial intelligence Mathis Mäeker. Some crypto companies even listed board members in their registration applications without their knowledge, using fake documents. Moreover, business plans were often full of "typographical errors or lacking any logic." Many company documents also contained machine translation into Estonian. “This calls into question the seriousness of the business that wanted to come here and their real desire to provide services in Estonia <...> Soon we will return to normal life in terms of supervision, where we can move from assessment on paper to daily supervision on site,” hopes Mathis . For a long time, Estonia was considered an attractive country for running a cryptocurrency business due to its simple registrations and licensing. However, over the past few years, the country's authorities have significantly tightened the requirements for crypto companies. In December 2020 alone, Estonian authorities revoked the licenses of more than 1,000 cryptocurrency companies in hopes of stopping money laundering. A year ago, the country also tightened the requirements for the minimum authorized capital for crypto firms, raising the bar 10 times - from €12,000 to €120,000. For some crypto companies, the threshold was even €350,000. In this way, the Estonian Ministry of Finance hoped to clear out inactive companies for local market, as well as reduce the risks of registering shell companies for resale. However, despite the tightening of requirements, Estonia did not enter the top of the most crypto-unfriendly countries.#feedfeverchallenge #bnb #btc #binance