Half a year after the Law on Digital Property came into force, at this moment, the processing of licenses necessary for the operation of crypto exchange offices is in the process. According to the expectations of the authorities, in the next few weeks, Serbia should get the first three regular crypto exchange offices.
That is how many licenses are currently being processed. As announced by the Minister of Finance, Siniša Mali, in addition, four more requests for issuing licenses were paid.
When the law regulating the area of cryptocurrencies was passed at the end of June, it is estimated that more than 10,000 people traded in them.
The director of the online crypto exchange “ecd.rs”, Aleksandar Matanović, notes that the work of the crypto exchange was unregulated until the law came into force, and that obtaining a license is a legal obligation for them.
“We are already working as a crypto exchange office and we are now in the process of processing the request for a permit because the law stipulates that those who have already worked can continue to work until they obtain a permit. The law made it possible for there to be no interruption in the work so that those who have already worked submit a request and can continue working while they are waiting for the decision on the procedure for obtaining a license,” he points out for Sputnik.
According to Matanović, before the law was passed, there were four or five crypto exchange offices in Serbia, of which only “ecd.rs” submitted a request for a license.
The others stopped working. He also explains why:
“It shows that the process is not so simple and cheap. States have very different approaches. Some countries have made the process of obtaining a license extremely fast and cheap, because they wanted to attract a lot of foreign companies to register with them and get a license. Some others have made the process very demanding, probably in the desire to develop this industry in a controlled way where only those who meet the highest standards will be allowed to do this business,” said the director of the online crypto exchange.
How online exchanges work
Explaining how these exchange offices work and what if someone wants to buy cryptocurrency, Matanović notes that registration on the site must be done first.
“Then comes the verification of the identity of the user. Only when that is done, then a request for purchase can be submitted, where they will receive payment instructions, to make the payment through the account. When the payment is recorded, they get cryptocurrency and that’s it.”
The procedure is similar when cryptocurrency is sold. When the request is submitted, instructions are given on how to send cryptocurrency. When it is recorded that it was sent, the payment reaches their account and that is where the process ends, says our interlocutor.
He notes that once the registration and identity check is passed, then it is no longer done. Registration is done online, as well as buying and selling, and identity verification must go live. That is according to the law, Matanović notes.
Users of cryptocurrencies, according to statistics, are mostly men in their twenties and thirties who are solidly technically savvy, Sputnik News reports.
