Estonian AML head suggests revoking crypto licenses

Here's the deal: there are only 400 crypto licenses left after they pulled 1800 in the last year, and it sounds like the rest might be next on the chopping block. A bunch of these licenses are tied to exchanges and similar platforms, so if you’ve got cash stashed with any of them, now might be a good time to withdraw until things settle down. Take Bitbay, for example. This Estonian exchange is getting more and more unfriendly with their KYC stuff. Could be they're just trying to get ready for tougher regulations, or they might be using it as a cover to rip off users. If they don’t get that new license, are they gonna say it’s a reason to keep our funds? I really don’t want to find out the hard way.

Will this affect P2P exchanges based in Estonia but incorporated in the US like Paxful? I still have ~$2k stuck on Paxful because I'm never doing KYC, and Paxful technically doesn't directly hold/control any customer's bitcoins. Still, if Paxful's can't operate in Estonia anymore or is simply going bankrupt, what kind of excuse could they use to prevent people from withdrawing?

Just to clarify that Estonian anti-money laundering chief does not have the power to revoke crypto licenses. Depending on how it is handled it might need a legislative changes to do something like that. As I stated in one of my own posts this chiefs word does carry a certain weight, but there are also others like him who have contradicting opinions. Quite a lot, in fact. In my own opinion things will most likely change, because it is not desirable to host a large number of companies who have no actual ties to Estonia aside from, legally speaking, operating there. However the change will most likely not be nearly as radical as proposed in this article.

Surprising, from what little I know about Estonia it is a very digital-friendly and so far crypto-friendly country. Let's hope so, but if they want to shoot themselves in the foot, that's up to them. News like this, a few years ago, would have worried me more, but today, countries that turn their back on Bitcoin have a lot to lose.

What will happen if the platforms refuse to cooperate? Of course, other parties will be contacted and asked to confiscate the platform, or at least stop it from working. If the government is serious, more legislation will be imposed, but the goal appears to be to reduce Estonia's view as a safe haven for every crypto-related platform or exchange that does not want to comply or take advantage of low fees. Does anyone know if a famous platform is based in Estonia? They will be tough with the users.

It is a bit stupid to give license for something and then revoke it later, and I think that this will mostly affect exchanges and crypto gambling websites, but if I remember correctly I think that old hashflare cloud mining website was also registered in Estonia. On Goingecko website I found a list of exchanges that are registered in Estonia and there are total of 24, many of them I never heard before, and some of them have no trading volume or they have fake volume. I would be very careful and withdraw coins from this exchanges if you are still using them: - B2BX - P2PB2B - Coinsbit - WhiteBIT - Hotbit - KickEX - Emirex - BitBNS - CoinMetro - Decoin - Omgfin - Exrates - STEX - Cryptology - Solarbeam - Bibo - Birake - Coinsbank - EtherFlyer - Shortex - EXNCE - Darb Finance - IncoreX - dex.blue https://www.coingecko.com/en/exchanges?country=EE

I am a bit out of my depth with this so take my answer with a grain of salt. Depending on how the un-cooperating company is set up a lot of things can happen or very little. If a company loses their license but still operates in Estonia it can be grounds for criminal proceedings in which it´s operations can be suddenly halted and its inventory confiscated. The efficency of the criminal proceedings depends entirely on how the company is set up. If operating in Estonia is merely a legal fiction (meaning that factually speaking the company operates somewhere else) a criminal proceeding in Estonia can have little impact on day-to-day business of the company. For example if the companies leadership, workers, main bank accounts, servers etc are outside of Estonia (and outside of EU), then there is very little that can be confiscated or halted. Also a company who does not want to cooperate can litigate license revocation in the court for quite a while. This further minimizes the risk that a company can suddenly become illegal. If the government decides to revoke the license suddenly then a company willing to go to court can additionally claim that it is unlawful to impose such a drastic change without first giving a reasonable timeframe for interested parties to react to those changes. I found a website here that lists platforms that are based in Estonia: https://craft.co/cryptocurrency-companies-in-tallinn-ee?page=1. Not sure how many of them are famous, but I do recognize some

No matter how much we all love freedom and privacy - regulation is coming! No matter how bitter it tastes or how bad it sounds, it is inevitable! If we really want to see bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies becoming mainstream, regulation and super strict kyc rule is inevitable. At the end of the day, it is government who rules a country. Unless the bitcoin community can create their own nation  y buying some islands in the middle of pacific ocean, there's actually no way to avoid regulation. Whatever is happening in Estonia, will eventually happen all over the world.