LITHUANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Tadas Kuzminskas, APB “Leagus”
• a list of all other activities provided by the CASP not covered by MiCAR. The home NCA shall, within ten working days of receipt of the notification, communicate that informa- tion to the host NCA. Non-EU firms must generally establish an EU enti- ty or work with a locally authorised partner; direct cross‑border provision from outside the EU is not permitted without local authorisation. Reverse solicitation is permitted if a Lithuanian client genuinely and independently initiates contact (unso- licited) and requests services from a foreign provider. The provider must be able to demonstrate the contact was truly unsolicited (clear written evidence: client request, no prior marketing/targeting, no onboarding activities directed at Lithuania). The Bank of Lithu- ania applies a narrow factual test and may scrutinise attempts to rely on reverse solicitation. Unregulated Services Selling blockchain‑based services that do not involve crypto‑asset services does not require authorisation under MiCAR (eg, private DLT implementations, enter- prise blockchain applications, or smart‑contract solu- tions), though such providers must still comply with applicable sectoral rules in Lithuania (data protection, outsourcing, AML/CFT, etc). 4.2 White Labelling MiCAR does not permit a CASP to appoint other legal persons – intermediaries or agents (third parties) – to provide crypto‑asset services on its behalf, for exam- ple to accept and transmit client orders. However, it is not explicitly prohibited for firms to use white‑label arrangements to sell into Lithuania by operating under an existing authorised entity’s licence, provided the licensed entity genuinely performs the regulated CASP activities and the arrangement complies with MiCAR. For example, the non-authorised firm may operate its own website, client base and sales strategy while the licensed CASP: • provides all regulated services and enters into the client agreements;
• performs AML/KYC monitoring and transaction surveillance; and • submits regulatory reports and retains regulatory responsibility. Thus, although white‑label solutions could theoreti- cally be used, in practice one must assess whether the proposed structure would be in compliance with MiCAR and whether the unlicensed firm would be regarded as providing crypto‑asset services that require authorisation under MiCAR. Lithuanian law does not directly prohibit DeFi (decen- tralised finance) as an ecosystem of financial appli- cations and services built on top of blockchain tech- nology; however, in practice such activities may be subject to various Lithuanian/EU law and licensing requirements, which can make practical deployment of DeFi more difficult. Many DeFi use cases will require licensing (eg, cryp- to-asset service provision, specialised banking, EMI authorisation, crowdfunding service provision), and AML/CFT, prudential and consumer‑protection obliga- tions may apply. Firms must therefore address these specific regulatory requirements before offering DeFi products or services into Lithuania. 5.2 DeFi Structures DeFi structures are rare in Lithuania. 5.3 Liability To date, DeFi has not been widely deployed in Lithu- ania – activity is largely limited to pilots and tests – so there is insufficient practice or precedent to reli- ably assess how courts and regulators would treat accountability or liability for harm caused by DeFi. 5. Decentralised Finance 5.1 Ability to Use DeFi
6. Payments and Stablecoins 6.1 Payments
A payment made in crypto-assets in Lithuania is regarded as a transfer of assets. For tax purpos-
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