Nevada Virtual Currency Money Transmission Regime

NRS Chapter 671 requires a person to hold a money transmission license, or act as an authorized delegate of a licensee, before engaging in or holding out as providing money transmission in Nevada. The licensing trigger applies regardless of whether the activity is conducted through a physical office, kiosk, internet platform, mobile device, telecommunications system, or other networked means.

The statute defines money transmission around three core activities: selling or issuing payment instruments to a person located in Nevada, selling or issuing stored value to a person located in Nevada, and receiving money or credits for transmission from a person located in Nevada. Chapter 671 also defines monetary value as a medium of exchange, whether or not redeemable in money, and defines stored value as monetary value evidenced by an electronic or digital record.

For crypto activity, the Nevada Financial Institutions Division has historically framed coverage as fact-specific. Its 2014 virtual-currency guidance warned that companies offering to exchange, administer, or maintain virtual currencies may be subject to state and federal regulation. A later FID cryptocurrency statement directed entities that facilitate transmission of, or hold, fiat or digital currency through brick-and-mortar, kiosk, mobile, internet, or other channels to seek a licensure determination. The same statement indicated that a digital custodian may be reviewed under Nevada trust-company law.

• Licensing trigger: A person engaged in covered money transmission must be licensed or operate as an authorized delegate within the scope of a written contract.
• Covered value: The definitions of monetary value and stored value are broad enough to require analysis of some digital-value products, even though Chapter 671 does not operate as a crypto-only statute.
• Business-model review: Virtual-currency exchanges, kiosks, hosted wallets, fiat on/off ramps, and custodial models may receive different treatment depending on who receives value, who owes the customer, and whether transmission or custody is occurring.
• Safeguards: Licensees are subject to surety bond, tangible net worth, permissible investment, reporting, examination, and enforcement provisions under Chapter 671.
• AML reporting: Licensees and authorized delegates must file reports required by the Bank Secrecy Act and other federal or state laws relating to money laundering.

Nevada modernized Chapter 671 through AB 21, approved as Chapter 23 of the 2023 Statutes of Nevada and effective July 1, 2023. Those amendments aligned Nevada’s money-transmission framework with the Money Transmission Modernization Act model and added several current definitions, prudential standards, multistate supervision tools, and enforcement provisions.

A later 2025 amendment, AB 430, removed payroll processing services from the definition of money transmission and became effective October 1, 2025. That change is not a virtual-currency rule, but it matters for current Chapter 671 status because older summaries may still describe payroll processing as included. NRS 671.020 also has a future applicability version effective January 1, 2030, which editors should re-check during future updates.

This profile does not determine whether any particular crypto business needs a Nevada license. The key editorial point is that Nevada uses a functional money-transmission and custody analysis rather than a single crypto-specific license label. Firms handling customer fiat, credits, stored value, or digital currency for transfer or custody should treat Nevada coverage as a regulator-facing determination question, not a purely asset-label question.