Hungary is cracking down on the digital economy ban implemented under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, revising a policy that will freeze crypto trading and remove prison sentences that have led to the country’s biggest platforms, government spokeswoman Anita Kobol said Thursday. according to at Bloomberg.
The return marks a complete overhaul of the law that began on July 1, 2025, when the legislature passed laws to prevent the use of illegal exchanges and other illegal cryptocurrencies.
Those actions – starting in the middle 50 million Hungarian forints (about $162,000) and 500 million forints (about $1.62 million) – jail terms of up to two to five years, depending on the value of the transaction. Providers operating without the central bank’s approval were sentenced to up to eight years.
The rules require formal approval of crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto conversions, a burden that led platforms including Revolut to suspend crypto operations in Hungary and launch an EU investigation into whether the restrictions are in line with bloc-wide rules.
The volume of domestic sales declined as local companies took on greater investment.
Hungary’s political security against bitcoin
Zoltán Tanács, Hungary’s Minister of Science and Technology, said the previous laws were “politically motivated” rather than market protection and announced that the government wants to remove the sanctions.
The new government plans to end the prosecution of market participants, revise the cyber security laws affecting about 4,000 Hungarian businesses that comply with the NIS2 directives, and harmonize the national laws with the rules of the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets.
The elders have noticed Estonia as a template for rebuilding the digital infrastructure in Hungary. Tanács said the change should bring international platforms back to Hungary and reduce tensions for domestic workers, according to Bloomberg.
The change has implications beyond Hungary’s borders. The Orbán-era policy was one of the most restrictive in the European Union, and the EU investigation resulted in Hungary’s non-compliance with the MiCA system that regulates crypto activities across the bloc.
Joining the MiCA would bring Hungary into line with legislation that now binds all 27 countries.
Hungary’s pivot follows a series of moves by governments to reconsider punitive crypto laws. In April, the central bank of Pakistan to be promoted an eight-year ban on cryptocurrency services, part of a broader plan to open up emerging markets.
These changes show that international restrictions are coming under increasing pressure as adoption of digital assets increases globally and cross-border enforcement increases under structures like MiCA.
The Hungarian government has not yet set a deadline for the constitutional changes.
