NextFin News - Hungary is preparing to decriminalize crypto trading, reversing an Orban-era crackdown that took effect on July 1, 2025 and exposed unauthorized crypto service providers to prison terms. The shift became public on June 6, when Zoltán Tanács, Hungary’s newly appointed minister of science and technology, said the government would lift what he called unjustified restrictions on the crypto assets market.
The change follows Hungary’s political reset in April, when Péter Magyar’s pro-EU Tisza Party won a parliamentary majority and ended Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule, according to Crypto Briefing and Cryptonews. Tanács, appointed in May after the new government was formed, has described the old rules as politically motivated rather than prudential. His position fits Tisza’s broader pro-EU stance and points to a wider recalibration toward Brussels, not just a narrower change in crypto policy.
Hungary’s previous regime went further than most European Union peers. The amended Crypto Act created criminal offenses tied to unauthorized crypto services and added a national validation requirement that sat uneasily beside the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, or MiCA. According to Cryptonews, the European Commission opened infringement proceedings over Hungary’s validation regime, arguing that the national certificate system conflicted with a harmonized EU rulebook. If the new government removes that requirement, it could eliminate one of the clearest barriers to crypto activity in the country without waiting for a full legislative rewrite.
The 2025 rules had immediate effects. Revolut suspended crypto services in the country after the law took effect, and local firms faced higher compliance costs than competitors operating in friendlier jurisdictions. The earlier policy also drew a line between ordinary holding and licensed intermediation: owning digital assets was not the same as offering exchange services, but the threat of criminal penalties chilled parts of the market. That is why the June 6 announcement is being treated as more than a technical change. It suggests Budapest now views crypto as a competitiveness issue, rather than only a matter for policing, a clear departure from the previous government’s approach.
For now, the legal overhaul is not complete. The public statements cited so far are political and administrative, not a published replacement statute. For traders and operators, that leaves a gap between intent and access. Markets can react quickly to a policy signal, but actual access depends on implementing texts, enforcement guidance and whether Hungary rewrites the criminal code or simply stops enforcing the old rules. The most immediate step would be to remove the validation regime. The more significant move would be to scrap criminal liability for unauthorized services, reopening a clearer path for exchanges, fintech platforms and local service providers. If Budapest withdraws the national validation layer, it may satisfy Brussels more quickly than a broader rewrite, but the criminal provisions would still need separate action if the government wants to restore full confidence in the market.
Hungary is making the change while MiCA is supposed to standardize crypto rules across Europe and reduce the patchwork that forced firms to build country-specific compliance models. Hungary’s previous regime moved the other way, creating one of the bloc’s more restrictive national frameworks just as the EU was trying to harmonize oversight. That left the country as an example of how a member state could still make crypto activity expensive or legally risky inside a single market. The new government now has to turn its pledge into statutes, supervisory rules and enforcement practice. If the rollback is only partial, firms could still face uncertainty around licensing, custody, taxes and reporting even if the harshest criminal penalties are removed.
Explore more exclusive insights at nextfin.ai.
