I don't know more than what the OP wrote, but is this anything different from what South Korea did recently, which Japan has done on several occasions? Being friendly about something must never mean that everyone should be allowed to do what they want and in whatever way they want. The reason why Estonia is considering revising all licenses is certainly that they have found that there are a lot of irregularities in the work of all these companies - and I would not be surprised if there is no pressure from abroad on their regulatory agencies.

Whatever happens will not significantly affect Bitcoin, as some companies may be denied a license, but that only means that it will move to another country - if Bitcoin has survived China, there is no doubt that it will survive Estonia as well.

Estonia is one of the country that made its early entry into cryptocurrency. Importantly it is the country that prioritised blockchain adoption. The governments management infrastructure too is incorporated with blockchain technology.

Estonia is crypto friendly country because it gave easy access for cryptocurrency companies to register and receive license in a very short time period. Now the same might be getting harder as the country's adopting cryptocurrency is growing with time. Maybe Estonia might've not achieved what is being planned which seems to be the reason for the review over the issued licenses. This might create some deviation in the market.

In 2020, Estonia's Financial Intelligence Unit also conducted a massive license revocation operation due to the burden of monitoring compliance.

Apart from Singapore, Estonia is often a top destination for crypto companies to obtain licenses even though they mainly target services overseas. This is shown by the many counseling service sites how to get a license in that country. As far as I know the country's favorite companies are crypto exchanges and casinos.

Every serious company always has a backup plan, and since we are only talking about the headquarters of the companies here, moving to another country is not a problem for most of them. Also, the Estonian authorities are certainly communicating with all these companies and they are aware of what is expected of them - and I am sure it will give them enough time to adjust.

Yet this may be an opportunity for some companies to consider moving to some other, for crypto much cheaper and warmer regions, like El Salvador.

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@noorman0, I wasn’t sure, but it was somewhere in my subconscious that something similar had already happened in that country, thanks for the reminder

They probably have their reason to do so. I haven't read the article, but I guess its because they have a weak regulatory framework and its becoming hard for the government to keep track of everything?
Revoking or reviewing licensing doesn't mean that they want to outlaw crypto currencies.
I thought bitcoin and other crypto currencies are for everyone. Just because they have a small population you can't go around saying that Estonia isn't important for crypto industries.

It's good to see that the Financial Intelligence Unit regularly withdraws crypto licenses from untrustworthy companies.

I am familiar with the "MODERNITYPARTY" company which is currently registered in Estonia and is incorporated as "UTRUST". A year ago, its team suddenly decided to swap their tokens. In short, they sent a large amount of new tokens directly to the Etherdelta smart contract and actually burned my tokens. As a result, I lost about 8000 USD at the current price. I contacted the official Customer Success Manager via Telegram, provided him the transaction hash, but in the end he just fell silent. As far as I know, many people who traded on decentralized exchanges have also suffered extensive financial damage. I even created a Scam Accusation thread on the Bitcointalk forum.

I personally would be glad to hear that the Estonian regulatory agency has revoked the crypto license that UTRUST obtained. I believe that other companies that commit fraud should also be shut down to protect people from impudent scammers hiding behind legal entities.

Anyway, such companies usually operate with their native tokens, so the next wave of revocations is unlikely to significantly affect the BTC price.

Does this one man alone has the power to do this? Or does he need support from the government or parliament? It's so common in crypto journalism to have a title that talks about a country, but when you open the article it says literally one official stated their own opinion.

But I wonder what made them consider such move? Is Estonia becoming a hub for international money laundering via crypto, or is it a purely domestic thing?

It will, soon as their SEC like agency do monitor and pass regulation requirements for those companies then we will see like a south korea way, where quality over quantity which lots of exchanges and didn't/can't comply the requirements that leads to shutting them down I suppose.

If a country is trying to pass a law which would make a crypto license difficult to obtain, it doesn't mean those who got theirs earlier and therefore a lot easier are off the hook. The regulations have been tightened. It would be natural for the regulators to look back and review those that are already operating after complying very simple requirements only. Especially in the case of Estonia where companies having crypto license are numbering to the hundreds, it would indeed be prudent to conduct a review of the existing licenses.