EU Sanctions Controls to Trigger Compliance Checks for Over 5,000 Crypto Firms

The European Union's introduction of Russia- and Belarus-related sanctions controls in August could lead to nearly 5,500 compliance checks for authorized crypto sector firms.

A study by FM Intelligence projects that between 1,569 and 5,409 governance and counterparty reviews will be triggered across the EU27. The base scenario estimates 2,849 review actions.

The analysis focused on 289 authorized crypto-asset service providers in the EU27, of which 256 have trading-related permissions. This puts 88.6% of the authorized population inside the primary group for counterparty and governance screening.

The concentration of firms with trading-related permissions is significant, with Germany, France, the Netherlands, Malta, and Cyprus accounting for 166 CASPs, or 57.4% of the EU27 total.