Law No. 66/2020: Albania’s first crypto framework, explained

On 21 May 2020 the Assembly of Albania adopted Law No. 66/2020 “On financial markets based on distributed ledger technology”. Under its final article the law entered into force on 1 September 2020.

Who supervises

The law names two “responsible authorities”: the Financial Supervisory Authority (AMF) and the National Agency for Information Society (AKSHI). The law splits licensing and supervision between them by type of activity, so each subject deals with one “responsible authority”.

What it regulates

The law covers digital-token offerings, DLT exchanges, third-party custody wallet providers, digital-token agents and other innovative service providers. It uses the terms “digital token” and “virtual currency” throughout. Its market-abuse chapter (Chapter IX) bans insider dealing and market manipulation involving these assets.

Capital requirements for DLT exchanges

• Category A licence: minimum capital of ALL 20,000,000.
• Category B licence: ALL 60,000,000 minimum capital, or proof that FIAT money deposited with the exchange never exceeds ALL 30,000,000.
• Category C licence: ALL 90,000,000, plus a net liquid asset ratio of at least 1.00 and market-abuse monitoring systems.
• Digital-token agent licence: minimum corporate capital of ALL 18,000,000.

Secondary legislation

The Council of Ministers adopted the implementing decisions in 2021. They include Decision No. 267 (12 May 2021) on the register of innovative service providers, Decision No. 458 (30 July 2021) on licensing those providers, Decision No. 699 (18 November 2021) on digital-token agents, and Decisions No. 708 and No. 709 (24 November 2021), the regulations on licensing DLT exchanges and third-party custody wallet providers. Each one is linked below to its Official Journal entry.

What we could not verify

We found no official public register that shows how many DLT licences, if any, AMF has granted under Law 66/2020. We therefore make no claim about licensing numbers. The status of Law 66/2020 once the new crypto-asset markets bill is passed is covered in the next article.