BlockBeats news, on July 14th, according to Forbes, Hungary officially implemented one of the strictest cryptocurrency regulations in the world starting from July 1st, forcing several large fintech companies to suspend related services and potentially criminalizing the digital asset trading behavior of hundreds of thousands of citizens. This major policy change has caused widespread confusion and concerns in the field of financial technology.
London based digital bank Revolut announced on Friday evening that it will temporarily suspend cryptocurrency services in Hungary from now on until further notice. Revolut has over 2 million users in Hungary. The company stated that it is "working hard to restore services as soon as possible", but did not provide a specific recovery schedule. This suspension covers all new cryptocurrency purchases, staking activities, and recharge operations, but users can still sell their existing holdings and transfer some tokens to external wallets. Revolut's other banking services are not affected.
The new regulations in Hungary have added two criminal charges: 'misuse of cryptocurrency' and 'providing unauthorized cryptocurrency exchange services'. According to the latest revised code in Hungary, individuals who use unauthorized cryptocurrency trading services may face up to two years in prison for their underlying trading activities; If the transaction amount exceeds 50 million Hungarian forints (approximately 140000 US dollars), the maximum sentence can be up to three years; If it exceeds 500 million forints (approximately 1.4 million US dollars), the maximum sentence can be up to five years.