In its session of 18 June 2019, the Council of Ministers of Cyprus, approved a National Strategy on Decentralized Technologies and Blockchain, encouraging the use of these technologies in both the public and private sectors (the financial services sector, in particular, as regards banking and investment transactions will be transformed in the coming years).

One of the most interesting points in this strategy is that the Ministry of Finance, in cooperation with the Tax Department and the Registrar of Companies, will coordinate the drafting of a regulatory framework based on certain principles set out in the strategy which will be implemented in Cyprus. Smart contracts are encouraged, and the framework will provide for these, while matters on crypto-wallets and others are decided to be left out for the time being.

This national strategy came as a result of the efforts in the framework of the European Cooperation in Blockchain, which was entered into on 4 June 2018 between Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, subject to the relevant Declaration of the Southern Mediterranean Countries on Distributed Ledger Technologies of 4 December 2018.

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