The Legal Framework of Digital Wallet Regulation in Georgia
Digital wallet regulation in Georgia begins with the monetary and payment norms of the Organic Law on the National Bank. The starting point is unambiguous: Article 39¹ of the law provides that a virtual asset is not a legal tender, and payments made in virtual assets are prohibited, save for the cases defined by a legal act of the National Bank which are necessary for providing virtual asset services. This means that electronic wallets operating in lari and other lawful payment instruments, on the one hand, and cryptocurrency wallets, on the other, fall under different legal regimes: the former under the payment-services rules, the latter under the prohibition-and-exceptions system for virtual assets. Classifying the product correctly at the design stage is therefore the first compliance decision any wallet issuer makes.