What is the best country for crypto license?

[Compliance Circle]

I agree the requirements in Estonia are too high to remain competitive for small startups.
Swissborg, for example, has an Estonian license, though. Also Coinspaid (one of the biggest gambling processors).

MiCA is soon here anyway so I would look more into tax and bureaucracy side of things. In the meantime, Bulgaria could be worthwhile.

In Estonia, they've made every step possible within their powers to clear 99% of market participants. That is the cost of fast-forward will to attract economic growth and innovation to small ex-Soviet Baltic country (e-residency, anyone remembers that stuff?) and general deregulation (operational notices, which used to be (are?) parts of recommendations by World Bank I believe for development.

Unfortunately, that could not have lasted long as Estonia simply couldn't afford to become known yet another capital for explicit money laundering, so they've had to drastically raise the bar.

I don't personally think that MICA would be strictly enforced on its in-force date as there's always a "grace period" for national legislatures to incorporate EU directives in national law. However, there are many other requirements apart from licensing bureaucracy and capital requirements that we shall consider, including crackdown on most used stablecoins.

 

[EliasIT]

For sure. Bulgaria and Slovakia are good choices for the time being.

Could there be a credibility issue if you have a license in those countries precisely because it's easy and cheap to get one there? Or does it not matter when it comes to working with other financial institutions and banks?

 

[ilke]

Could there be a credibility issue if you have a license in those countries precisely because it's easy and cheap to get one there? Or does it not matter when it comes to working with other financial institutions and banks?

Partially. That will depend on the financial institution you are working with. If you're using one that's already friendly towards crypto exchanges, they generally will not prioritise the actual jurisdiction of the VASP, but rather focus on if you have a good MLRO, reasonable AML policies, protected onboarding system, etc.

Keep in mind that Bulgaria is still on the grey list (though improvements were found), which does make opening accounts at FIs more difficult. Slovakia wouldn't have this issue. Other VASP licenses in Europe are of course achievable; their difficulty (for now) depends on the discretion of the state governments - and it will depend on the EU with MiCA soon.

 

[lory]

Keep in mind that Bulgaria is still on the grey list (though improvements were found), which does make opening accounts at FIs more difficult. Slovakia wouldn't have this issue. Other VASP licenses in Europe are of course achievable; their difficulty (for now) depends on the discretion of the state governments - and it will depend on the EU with MiCA soon.

Do you know if it is possible at all to open an account somewhere for a company in Bulgaria? I have some plans in the near future there so establishing a company will be natural.