Significant developments continue to take place in the field of legal regulation, which has been on the cryptocurrency agenda for a long time. Accordingly, the number of officially registered crypto companies operating in Spain has increased by approximately 56% in 2023. According to the official records published as an Excel document on the website of the Bank of Spain, 30 companies were granted a crypto asset service provider license in 2023.
Crypto Companies Comply with Legal Regulations
As we live through the final days of 2023, developments that took place over the year continue to make headlines. Accordingly, the 53 companies officially added to the records in Spain in 2022 are still behind the 2023 figure. However, this could be attributed to the fact that the official records were first opened in 2022.
Many international crypto platforms, such as Revolut, Bitpanda, Crypto com, and Vivid, have managed to be included in the official records in 2023. Despite striking developments such as Coinbase securing its Anti-Money Laundering compliance record and Kraken obtaining its crypto asset service provider registration, some major crypto companies are still not in the registry. Spanish companies, on the other hand, still dominate the market with 61 of the 85 licenses issued by the official institution.
Notable Steps in Spain
Spanish regulators have recently continued to take an active stance towards the crypto market. In October, Spain’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation announced that it would implement the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation six months ahead of the deadline.
In November, the National Securities Market Commission opened its first case against a technology provider for violating the country’s crypto advertising rules. The same month, the Spanish Tax Agency introduced Form 721, a tax declaration form for crypto assets held abroad.
In addition, the agency sent 328,000 warning notices to individuals who failed to pay their cryptocurrency taxes for the 2022 fiscal year. This development indicates a 40% increase in the number of notifications compared to 2021.