ROMANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Alexandru Stanescu, Simina Negulescu, Anca Popan and Mihai-Cristian Huială, Lexters
Lexters Heleșteului street, no 17 Bucharest Romania Tel: +40 745 772 762 Email: contact@lexters.com Web: www.lexters.com
1. Overview of Blockchain and Crypto- Assets 1.1 Blockchain 1.1.1 Evolution of Uses of Blockchain Market Evolution and Current Use Cases The Romanian market for blockchain and crypto- assets is active, with development varying by use case. The projects most frequently analysed involve tokenisation, crypto-asset issuance, payment-adja- cent products, platform solutions, crypto cards, custody and alternative financing. Over the past 12 months, interest in real-world asset tokenisation – par- ticularly real estate, receivables and private company participation rights – has grown, with many projects moving from concept to structured pre-launch. Applicable Legal Framework Romania operates within the EU regulatory frame- work, which provides a clear and harmonised legal foundation for blockchain-based businesses. The primary instruments are Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on markets in crypto-assets (MiCA), the EU Transfer of Funds Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2022/2554 on digital operational resilience for the financial sector (DORA), as well as the payment services regime and anti-money laundering (AML) legislation. For market participants, this EU-anchored approach means a single, predictable perimeter that applies across all member states, rather than a fragmented patchwork of national rules. Romania supplements this frame- work with national implementing measures, including emergency ordinances and secondary rules issued by the Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) and the National Bank of Romania (BNR), which operationalise EU requirements at the domestic level.
The Next 12 Months The most significant near-term development is the national implementation of MiCA. On 2 April 2026, the Romanian government reviewed a draft emer- gency ordinance in first reading, designating ASF and BNR as competent authorities, establishing a sanc- tions regime, and introducing rules for crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) and crypto-asset ATMs. Once adopted, it will complete the domestic frame- work needed to launch and scale CASP operations from Romania. The ordinance is expected to bring legal certainty and establish a local filing route; the ASF and BNR would be required to adopt secondary rules within 30 days of its entry into force. Regulatory Attitude and Policy Direction The ASF has described itself as a facilitator of innova- tion while emphasising financial stability and consum- er protection. It treats tokenisation, smart contracts and stablecoins as technologies that supervisors must understand and oversee in a modern way, and it acknowledges the need to recruit more blockchain- specialist staff. At government level, the direction is regulatory inte- gration: blockchain products touching capital mar- kets, payments, custody and investment services are brought within the existing ASF/BNR supervisory architecture rather than under a separate regime. Tokenisation, stablecoins, smart contracts and cryp- to-asset services are more readily accepted where they can be classified, supervised and aligned with investor protection, AML, operational resilience and market integrity requirements – which Romania’s EU- aligned framework supports.
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