VASP

A VASP, or virtual asset service provider, is a business that conducts crypto-related financial services on behalf of customers, such as exchanging crypto for fiat, trading one crypto asset for another, transferring assets, or providing custody. The term was defined by the FATF, the global anti-money-laundering standard-setter, and has been adopted into many national laws as the legal category that determines which crypto businesses must register and comply with financial regulations.

Classification as a VASP carries concrete obligations: registering or obtaining a license with the national regulator, performing KYC on customers, monitoring transactions for suspicious activity, and complying with the Travel Rule by sharing sender and recipient information on transfers to other VASPs. For example, a centralized exchange that lets users deposit dollars, buy bitcoin, and withdraw it is a textbook VASP and must typically register in each jurisdiction where it serves customers.

A common misconception is that everyone touching crypto is a VASP; the definition targets businesses providing services for or on behalf of others, so individuals using self-custody wallets, and typically software developers who merely publish code, fall outside it, though the exact boundary, especially for DeFi front-ends and wallet providers, is drawn differently across jurisdictions. Some regions use different labels for essentially the same concept, such as CASP (crypto-asset service provider) under the EU's MiCA regulation, but the underlying idea is the same: intermediaries handling customer crypto are regulated financial businesses.