SC Crypto & Digital Asset Regulation

Three specific outcomes anchor this period's record. First, the FSA rejected a Virtual Asset Service Providers Act licence application from Bitfinity Ltd, trading as BitexBit, on 11 August 2026, on the finding that the company had been operating as a virtual asset service provider since before the Act's own enactment without the requisite licence; this followed an earlier cease-and-desist order issued against the company on 30 October 2025, indicating the FSA had already identified and acted against the entity's unlicensed conduct well before the formal rejection. Second, the FSA publicly identified MX Global Ltd, a Seychelles International Business Company holding registration number 238047, as the entity operating the MEXC exchange without the required licence, in a public statement dated 26 May 2026; naming a Seychelles-incorporated entity as standing behind a globally-recognised exchange brand is a materially more consequential disclosure than a routine licensing notice, since it directly links the jurisdiction's corporate registry to the operation of a major unlicensed trading platform. Third, and most recently, the FSA recorded on 23 October 2026 the withdrawal of a licence application from Stratos Tech Limited, trading as Tradu; a withdrawal is procedurally distinct from a rejection, since it reflects the applicant's own decision to discontinue the process rather than an adverse regulatory finding, though the public record does not disclose whether the withdrawal was voluntary in a commercial sense or made in anticipation of an unfavourable outcome.

A parallel development reinforces the compliance perimeter for Seychelles-incorporated vehicles generally. FSA Circular No. 5 of 2026, dated 17 August 2026, reminds International Business Companies that virtual-asset activity conducted without a licence remains prohibited under section 5 of the International Business Companies Act, and explicitly situates this reminder ahead of the jurisdiction's Third Round Mutual Evaluation by the regional anti-money-laundering standard-setting body. The circular's framing, tying a licensing reminder directly to an upcoming external evaluation, suggests the FSA is using the IBC population itself, not just the virtual-asset licensing register, as a channel for reinforcing compliance expectations in the run-up to that evaluation.

The gazetted text of the Act's implementing regulations, covering matters such as capital requirements, custody-segregation rules and other prudential provisions, was not located this period; the available description of these regulations rests on secondary commentary summarising a draft rather than the regulator's own published text. That gap is material because it means the precise, currently-binding prudential requirements facing a Seychelles-licensed virtual-asset service provider cannot be stated with confidence from a primary source at this time, even though the licensing obligation itself, and the criminal consequences of operating without a licence, rest on the clearly in-force statute.

Outlook

The trajectory for Seychelles' virtual-asset licensing regime points toward continued enforcement intensity rather than settling into a steady state, consistent with a regulator still working through a backlog of operators that predate the Act and have not yet come into compliance. The most significant open development to track is whether the Act's implementing regulations, including the custody-segregation requirements described in commentary, are finalised and gazetted, since that would resolve current uncertainty about the precise prudential obligations facing licensed operators. The jurisdiction's upcoming Third Round Mutual Evaluation is likely to continue shaping both the pace and the public visibility of FSA enforcement activity against unlicensed virtual-asset operators through the remainder of 2026.