Confidentiality is workable so long as the regulated firm can identify the parties and disclose on demand. Encrypted amounts are not the thing being restricted.
What Seychelles actually says
Seychelles matters here because of how many crypto entities are domiciled in it rather than because of anything it says about confidentiality, and it says nothing. No located instrument restricts anonymity-enhancing assets. What changed is the plumbing around that silence. The 2024 Act arrived with an unusually complete set of regulations, and the regulator paired them with substance requirements and guidance on what counts as operating in or from Seychelles. That combination closes the structure anonymity-tolerant venues have historically relied on: registering in a jurisdiction with no privacy rules while serving users everywhere else. The absence of a prohibition is becoming less useful than it looks.
The instruments that matter
- Virtual Asset Service Providers Act 2024
- supported by licensing, advertising, cyber security, client asset safekeeping, capital, and ICO and NFT registration regulations all made in 2024
- Substance requirements
- an FSA guidance note on substance, plus guidance interpreting what it means to operate in or from Seychelles; this is the nexus test that closes the registered-here, operating-elsewhere structure
- Only companies may apply
- domestic companies and international business companies, never individuals
- Circular No. 14 of 2025
- governs transitional applications, with active enforcement against unlicensed offshore platforms continuing through 2026
What this means for confidential transactions
Bubble is built for exactly this shape of obligation: amounts and balances live on chain as ciphertexts, computation happens without decryption, and the only disclosure path is an on-chain access list through which an authorized party - an auditor, a supervisor, a counterparty - can request scoped decryption. That is confidentiality from the public, not from the regulator.
Related entries
- NigeriaMiddle East & Africa · Securities-first, with banking access restored
- EstoniaEurope · The licence cull that reshaped the European market
- GhanaMiddle East & Africa · The regulator that put self-custody in writing
- IsraelMiddle East & Africa · Light on-chain, heavy on data protection
- MauritiusMiddle East & Africa · A mature licensing regime that never mentions anonymity
- RwandaMiddle East & Africa · Anonymity defined out of the regime rather than banned
Compliant by default.
See how selective disclosure satisfies a supervisor without publishing your book to the world.