Hungary to decriminalize crypto trading after EU scrutiny, reversing 2025 prison-risk rules

Hungary is set to unwind a 2025 crypto regime that tied certain crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto transactions to criminal penalties, according to Tisza government spokesperson Anita Köböl. For PSPs and digital asset platforms, the important part is simple: the country is moving away from a framework that made normal conversion activity hard to run and easy to suspend.

1. Speaking at a Thursday press conference, Köböl said Hungary would reverse rules introduced last year that required approved validation for crypto conversions and attached criminal penalties to violations. She said the restrictions contributed to a decline in crypto trading activity in the country.
2. Köböl called the legislation “an unnecessary piece of legislation” that “made practical operation impossible and frightened the market participants,” according to a translation by Cointelegraph. She also said the criminal consequences “negatively impacted several hundred thousand people.”
3. The rules pushed several digital asset platforms, including Revolut, to suspend crypto services in Hungary, Köböl said. She added that the regulation also led to a European Union probe into whether Hungary’s restrictions were compatible with the bloc’s rules.
4. The 2025 framework amended Hungary’s Criminal Code and Act VII of 2024 on the crypto market, known as the Crypto Act. Under the amendments that took effect on July 1, 2025, crypto exchanges could be carried out only with a compliance certificate issued by an authorized crypto asset conversion validation service provider.
5. Those providers had to check the origin of crypto assets, identify wallet or device ownership, assess user profiles, and verify transactions against external databases before issuing compliance certificates. Transactions without the certificate were treated as “unauthorised crypto-transactions,” with linked asset transfers deemed invalid and unable to produce legal effect.

The penalty ladder was not subtle. Individuals or entities exchanging crypto worth between 5 million Hungarian forint and 50 million forint (about $16,000 to $160,000) through an unauthorized exchange service could face up to two years in prison; the term rose to five years for transactions between 50 million forint and 500 million forint, and up to eight years above 500 million forint.