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Estonia has revoked licenses from more than 1,000 crypto companies

The Estonian government revoked the licenses of more than 1,000 cryptocurrency companies. This happened amid increasing control over the digital asset industry and countering money laundering. As the representative of the State Commission on Combating Money Laundering noted, "monitoring and regulation" of crypto service operators "constantly needs increased attention." He said that in the past year, many projects have received licenses to work with crypto projects. And amendments to the country's legislation, which came into force in 2020, have tightened the licensing of operators of services related to digital assets. “In 2020, the Financial Intelligence Agency revoked more than 1000 licenses to operate from companies dealing with crypto assets. At the same time, there are still around 400 companies offering services in this area in Estonia. The connection of many of these companies with Estonia is minimal, and the clientele of some companies is from distant countries, ” the Ministry of Finance said.

Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issues the first cryptocurrency license

Last November, the SFC unveiled new rules for regulating cryptocurrency exchanges in the region. Then OSL Digital Securities Ltd became the only company to apply for a license. On August 25, the SFC tentatively approved an application for a license of a digital asset trading platform operator, but the company had a number of undisclosed conditions to meet. And on December 15, a press release was issued by BC Technology Group, of which OSL is a member, which states that it has finally obtained a license that allows the company to conduct regulated brokerage and automated digital asset trading services. In addition to Hong Kong's licenses, OSL has also applied to the Monetary Authority of Singapore for a digital asset license under the Payment Services Act. First of all, the news is interesting because institutional investors will get access to trading Bitcoin, Ethereum and security tokens. This event is expected to generate interest from industry players to join the market.