Report contents
Europe · Established
Cyprus
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 58 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +0 |
| Inflation 1.8% · unbanked 4% · remittances 1.8% GDP · capital controls 0 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.029 |
| Need multiplier | ×0.544 |
| Livability score | 0.376 |
Raw 58/84 = 0.690 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.03, from five components: inflation 1.8% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 4% of adults, remittances 1.8% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.00 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×0.54. Livability score 0.376, rank #52 of 79.
Three findings
Cyprus settles utility bills in crypto without any provider ever touching a coin
None of the island's utilities, EAC for electricity, Cyta and Epic for telecoms, the Water Development Department, publish crypto acceptance. The full 6 of 6 score comes from Monerium's EURe-to-SEPA bridge, which lets a self-custodial wallet push euros to any Cypriot IBAN automatically: a background off-ramp that the user experiences as a direct crypto payment.
A registration hub with no grassroots market underneath it
Sixty-three exchanges register in Cyprus, a top-band Access score, yet the auditor places domestic peer-to-peer (person-to-person trading without an intermediary) liquidity at the very bottom, and the P2P bonus at 0 of 4. Cyprus is an EU brokerage address, not a place where ordinary people trade crypto with each other.
Strong capability, almost no need, hence the 24-place slide
Cyprus scores 58 of 84 in raw capability but a Crypto-Necessity Index of just 0.03: inflation 1.8%, 4% unbanked, no capital controls, no sanctions. The ×0.54 need multiplier drops it from rails #28 to livability #52. This is the index working as designed, not a defect: capable, but with little to be necessary for.
In one line
"Cyprus has built one of the EU's busiest crypto front doors. What it has not built is a reason for its own residents to walk through it."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 3/4, trending liberalising. CySEC opened its formal MiCA (the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation) licensing portal on 1 January 2025 with three capital classes, and actively courts MiFID brokers to add VASP (virtual asset service provider) services; the 12-month transition closed 30 December 2025. Cyprus tabled six crypto bills on 30 October 2025, including a fixed 8% tax on crypto gains effective 2026, the move that lifts its tax sub-score from band 2 into band 3.