Portugal’s Central Bank has approved two cryptocurrency exchanges, Criptoloja and Mind the Coin, to begin their operations for crypto exchange and other related services.
This is likely to be a huge boost for the crypto industry as a whole and those in Portugal especially as it is an important milestone for one of the major central banks to approve of such operations and it also throws open the door for those who are pending approvals in that country. It is also likely to gain attention among other crypto investors and developers as they look towards countries and regulators that are favorable.
Recently El Salvador approved Bitcoin as legal tender and we are seeing more and more regulators coming around to accepting that the crypto growth is unavoidable. Though the central bank decision is in no way an approval of crypto as legal tender, it does show that they are beginning to show serious interest in this field and are willing to encourage growth and innovation. Portugal is already favored as a tax haven and the fact that there would not be any capital gains tax is also likely to attract more crypto investors into the country.
“Banco de Portugal’s supervision regarding virtual assets service providers, as determined by Law No 83/2017 of 18 August 2017, is limited to AML/CFT purposes, and does not extend to other areas of a prudential, market conduct or any other nature,” the bank said in a statement.
It is also reliably learned that 5 more exchanges have submitted their proposals and are waiting for the go-ahead from the central bank of Portugal. Reports say that Criptoloja had applied for the license on September 29 of last year and for it to become the first crypto exchange in Portugal along with Mind the Coin, should be a big boost for the company.
Portugal is slowly and surely becoming one of the major tax havens for crypto investors as it is likely to throw open its doors for companies and investors who want to deal in crypto. It is one of the most tax-friendly countries and Portugal, along with Malta which has also approved 2 exchanges for operations earlier, are leading Europe is becoming more and more crypto-friendly unlike the regulators in some other countries like China and the US who do not view the crypto world with the same kindness as their counterparts in Europe.
