{"id":44679,"date":"2021-06-21T13:25:07","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T10:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=44679"},"modified":"2025-08-31T18:07:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T15:07:34","slug":"malta-risks-being-placed-on-fatfs-offshore-list-over-bitcoin-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/malta-risks-being-placed-on-fatfs-offshore-list-over-bitcoin-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Malta risks being placed on FATF&#8217;s offshore list over Bitcoin support"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) characterised Malta&#8217;s initiative to attract cryptocurrency startups as &#8216;problematic&#8217;, according to <a href=\\\"https:\/\/timesofmalta.com\/articles\/view\/crypto-billions-moved-through-malta-amid-lax-oversight.880637\\\">Times of Malta<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Experts questioned the effectiveness of the AML measures, despite the tightening of the regulatory framework in 2018 for the sector.<\/p>\n<p>According to the organisation, the volume of bitcoin transactions through Malta since 2017, when authorities announced the national blockchain strategy, surpassed \u20ac60 billion ($71 billion).<\/p>\n<p>The FATF flagged the regulatory &#8216;Wild West&#8217; of 2017\u20132018 and an insufficient enforcement regime. Experts raised the question whether Malta should be included in the list of jurisdictions that do not do enough to curb large-scale financial crime.<\/p>\n<p>The authorities noted that Malta accounts for only about 2% of global bitcoin transaction volume, and that the sector now enjoys robust regulation.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, several blockchain companies, including Binance, began operating in the country thanks to a one-year licensing deferral. According to sources cited by the Times of Malta, such a grace period led to a surge in high-risk transactions.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2020, Malta&#8217;s regulator <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/malta-regulator-grants-in-principle-licenses-to-crypto-com\">tentatively licensed<\/a> the cryptocurrency payments platform Crypto.com.<\/p>\n<p>In December 2020, ForkLog <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/maltas-banks-jeopardise-plans-for-a-blockchain-island\">reported<\/a> that local banks were unwilling to work with industry representatives, jeopardising plans to create a &#8216;blockchain island&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Maltese authorities warned investors about the risks of dealing with unlicensed cryptocurrency companies. At the time, they noted that Binance fell into that category.<\/p>\n<p> Subscribe to ForkLog news on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ForkLog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Twitter<\/a>! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) described the country&#8217;s initiative to attract cryptocurrency startups as &#8216;problematic&#8217;, according to Times of Malta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,971,745],"class_list":["post-44679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-fatf","tag-malta"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"10","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44681,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44679\/revisions\/44681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}