Hungary plans to scrap prison terms for crypto transactions after MiCA clash

Hungary is preparing a bill that would remove criminal liability for crypto transactions and bring local rules into line with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. For PSPs and crypto operators, the point is simple: a ruleset that turns ordinary conversion and exchange activity into a jail issue tends to push volume, licenses, and counterparties out of the country.

1. Hungarian government spokesperson Anita Kobol said the government is drafting legislation to отменить criminal penalties for crypto operations and align Hungarian law with MiCA. She also said the European Union had started an investigation into whether Hungary’s earlier restrictions complied with bloc rules.
2. In July 2025, Hungary passed a law that created two criminal offenses: “abuse of crypto-assets by users” and providing unlicensed crypto exchange services. Under those rules, any crypto-to-fiat conversion or crypto-to-crypto exchange required a certificate of compliance from a local validator, and transactions without that certificate were legally invalid.
3. The penalties were not symbolic. Ordinary violations could carry up to two years in prison, transactions above 50 million Hungarian forints (about $140 000) up to three years, and transactions above 500 million forints (about $1,4 million) up to five years. Officers of operators that had not received validator approval faced up to three years, while representatives of companies with especially large transaction volumes could get up to eight years.
4. After the criminal penalties took effect, Revolut suspended crypto services for residents of Hungary, and other crypto companies began moving operations to neighboring jurisdictions such as Estonia and Lithuania. That is the part compliance teams care about: when the legal framework becomes hard to price, volume migrates first and asks questions later.
5. The source also notes that Russia’s State Duma is considering two bills on administrative and criminal liability for unlicensed crypto operations, including fines for anti-money laundering and internal-control failures, and prison terms of up to seven years for illegal organization of crypto circulation. Different jurisdiction, same playbook: once criminal exposure enters the picture, payment and crypto infrastructure usually gets a lot less eager to stay local.