Crypto Regulations in Spain
In Spain, there is no legislation specific to virtual currencies, except for the piece of legislation approved in April 2021 implementing the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (see Section IV), the law approved in July 2021 on preventing and fighting tax evasion and a new Circular approved by the Spanish securities regulator (CNMV) on the advertising of cryptoassets (see Section IX). In October 2021, the Bank of Spain put in place a register for providers who are engaged in the exchange of services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies and for custodian wallet providers (see Section V)
Source: The Law Reviews
While there is no Spanish legislation that specifically addresses cryptocurrency coin offerings, ICOs may nevertheless fall under Spain’s general securities and investments laws. Concerning the classification and commercialization of cryptocurrency, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores (CNMV) proclaimed in an unofficial announcement that cryptocurrencies are per se not securities under Spain’s laws. The CNMV is the governmental agency responsible for regulating Spain’s securities market. Specifically, the CNMV is the Spanish investment services and securities regulator and the entity charged with regulating cryptocurrency advertisements.
Source: Freeman Law
At present, no virtual currency, including Bitcoin, is recognised by Spanish law as a digital currency, electronic money or as a payment method. The main concern is consumer protection as an important part of the activities related to cryptocurrencies cannot be included within the scope of European regulations for financial services (EDM2 and PSD2) and, in the instances when some activities do fall within their scope, not all risks attached are adequately addressed and mitigated.
Source: The Law Reviews
Crypto-assets, their issuance and related services are not regulated. However, investment in crypto-assets continues to grow significantly and it is becoming a common investment for all type of investors. Investing in crypto-assets may not be appropriate for retail clients given the risks of this type of investment and possible loss of the invested amount.
Source: Simmons + Simmons
No specific Spanish regulations have been passed regarding taxation of virtual currencies. Therefore, transactions with virtual currencies must be taxed according to the existing legal institutions, and in light of the specific characteristics of the intangible assets, which in some cases may not be perfectly adapted to the operation of virtual currencies. This limitation has led to some taxpayers requesting the tax authorities to issue binding rulings regarding several aspects of the taxation of virtual currencies.
Source: The Law Reviews
The regulation to which an exchange is subject under Spanish law depends on whether or not the assets are traded as financial instruments and on the type of activity performed within the exchange.
Source: The Law Reviews
New Legal Developments towards a More Regulated Sector Crypto-assets, cryptocurrencies and/or related service providers have not been traditionally regulated in Spain. These products or services have only been captured to the extent they were embedded in other financial products (e.g. funds or derivatives) or in case they could qualify as a financial instruments directly (e.g. security tokens).
Source: Simmons + Simmons
Spanish police have arrested a 22-year-old UK citizen in connection with the hacking of 130 high-profile Twitter accounts, including those of Elon Musk, Barack Obama and Kanye West. The hacked accounts tweeted followers, encouraging them to join a Bitcoin scam, in July last year.
Source: BBC
The Spanish Civil Guard arrested five people suspected of stealing about six million euro (US$6.67 million) from a Spanish company dedicated to storing the crypto assets of its clients. The theft was made possible when the computer of one of the company’s employees got infected with a virus after he downloaded a movie from a pirate website.
Source: OCCRP
In terms of regulation and supervision, it represents one of the greatest innovations made to date by the supervisory authorities, since the ultimate goal of the Sandbox will be to support the development of innovative projects under a legal and secure framework, which, due to the novelty of their business model, are unable to find a place in the current regulatory framework.
Source: Sandbox Spain
