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EU accession pressure is one of the key drivers of the initiative, as the country seeks to position itself as a credible, well-regulated market, although some commentators have expressed concerns about the adequacy of privacy protections.
In October 2025, the Serbian Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering (APML) launched a competitive bidding procedure to establish a real-time crypto-tracking system intended to support anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) efforts.
The tender specified that the new platform is to monitor trading activities on major blockchain networks involving Serbian residents, aiming to provide the regulator with detailed insights into potentially suspicious fund flows, thereby clarifying its operational scope and purpose.
The system will gather public information from the blockchain, monitor networks and apply network analytics to enable analysts to identify the possible owner of a wallet and determine their identity, possibly through exchanges or custodians.
The official deadline to submit bids for this tender was November 10, 2025. The timeline for the introduction of the new system has not been finalised, so market participants should monitor official announcements.
Seeking real-time insights
The crypto-tracking system will monitor transactions across the ten largest cryptocurrencies and stablecoins by trading volume: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), BNB, Dogecoin (DOGE), XRP, Sui (SUI), Tether’s USDT, Circle’s USDC and First Digital USD (FDUSD).
According to Gurcan Partners, a Belgrade-based law firm, the regulator wants real-time insight into crypto transactions, especially when funds move from exchanges to self-hosted wallets.
“The goal is to close the current visibility gap, fully align with FATF standards, and demonstrate that Serbia takes financial integrity as seriously as the EU,” the firm stated.
“It's not about restricting legal use of crypto, but about preventing abuses and positioning Serbia as a credible, well-regulated market”.
EU accession pressure is one of the key reasons for the initiative, according to Russel Novak, Senior Corporate Specialist with the Belgrade office of international law firm YB Case.
“Serbia already has a full Digital Assets Act, and Brussels expects FATF-style AML/CFT capability. A national blockchain analytics platform is a very visible way to prove this,” Novak said.
According to Belgrade-based lawyer Nikola Petrović, the platform is clearly intended to strengthen Serbia’s AML framework and curb illicit financial activity.
The tender explicitly states that the platform should “significantly improve the ability to effectively monitor and prevent illegal financial activities related to cryptocurrency trading.”
Petrović emphasised that the goal is not to restrict legal crypto use, but to equip authorities with tools to trace suspicious transactions, correlate on-chain activity with licensed exchanges and respond more rapidly to suspected criminal behaviour.
The era of anonymity is drawing to an end
For users, the platform signals the end of “practical anonymity”, particularly where transactions interact with regulated entities, Gurcan Partners noted. More frequent compliance checks are expected, though bans on lawful trading appear unlikely.
“For companies, the message is clear: expect stricter AML expectations, faster reporting duties, and higher compliance costs. At the same time, the regulatory environment will become more predictable, making Serbia more attractive to serious operators who value stability over opacity,” the firm added.
The initiative may also lead to tighter reporting obligations for crypto firms.
“The tender hints that once the system is live, reporting expectations will increase – possibly including faster replies to [regulators’] queries, more standardized data or new reporting templates,” Novak said.
This will mean higher compliance costs, but also greater legitimacy. According to Novak, bigger, more serious firms may benefit from a cleaner market, whereas smaller players may feel operational pressure.
The platform will allow authorities to flag suspicious addresses more quickly and seek attribution from exchanges or intermediaries, though this heightened scrutiny introduces operational risks for legitimate users.
Petrović cautioned that although greater transparency will increase the effectiveness of law enforcement, it also increases the chance of errors, including potential mistaken freezes or disruptions for innocent users.
He added that without strong legal safeguards, this technology could erode privacy expectations for users, meaning that “policy design, including access rules, data retention and oversight, will be crucial”.
More oversight on the road
Serbia’s Law on Digital Assets, passed in 2021, created the rules for the use of cryptocurrencies – the “traffic laws”, as Petrović describes it.
“However, until now, authorities have had very few ‘traffic cameras’ or ‘patrols’ on the road itself – on the blockchain. They knew who was licensed, but they couldn’t easily see what was actually happening with the digital money,” he said.
“The goal of this new monitoring platform is to become the operational arm of the law.”
Although not an EU member, Serbia aims to remain aligned with Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) principles to maintain compatibility with European markets, Novak said. Additional AML reporting and data-sharing rules are expected once the platform is deployed.
Clearer Travel Rule guidance, enhanced cross-VASP communication requirements and a tougher stance on unlicensed operators also appear likely, given the enhanced enforcement capabilities.
However, the new rules have raised concerns about privacy protections.
According to Petrovich, analytical tools use heuristics to link public crypto addresses to real-world identities.
“Once the state collects this data, it can de facto create a detailed financial picture of the user's blockchain activities, even without an initial suspicion of criminal activity,” he said.
He expects ministries and financial regulators to issue detailed guidelines and secondary regulations, specifying not only the purposes for which the data may be used, but also the data protection and security measures in line with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards.
For payments firms operating in Serbia, the plans for the surveillance platform signal a shift towards a more data-intensive supervisory model that will increasingly resemble EU arrangements.
Firms should anticipate a regulatory environment where transaction-level transparency becomes standard, reporting cycles shorten and supervisory queries become more granular.
Those willing to invest early in strengthened AML controls, Travel Rule compliance and scalable data-governance systems will be best positioned to influence upcoming rulemaking and secure regulatory goodwill.
Conversely, business models reliant on limited disclosure or fragmented record-keeping will face growing pressure as Serbia moves towards a more integrated, enforcement-ready oversight framework aligned with the wider European system.
