Three Countries Where Bitcoin (and other coins) Are Completely Illegal To Use
After the recent arrests in Bolivia of a group promoting the sale and transaction of bitcoin; probably a good time to do a post on Countries that have banned the use of bitcoin.
Countries where Bitcoin is Illegal
1.) Bolivia
Bolivia banned bitcoin (and some other coins) back in 2014. The law can be summed up in there following statement:
"It is illegal to use any kind of currency that is not issued and controlled by a government or an authorized entity."
60 people were arrested by the Bolivian government for "promoting virtual currency investment"
Full article can be found here: https://news.bitcoin.com/bolivia-government-arrests-pyramid-scheme-not-bitcoin/
2.) Ecuador
In July 2014 the Ecuadorian government banned cryptocurrencies and actually went about creating their own digital currency.
However, their digital currencies does not look like it made any headway as the countries banks were not really on board with the technology the government was using.
3.) Bangladesh
Transacting in crytpocurrency is punishable by up to 12 years in prison in Bangladesh! Back in September 2014 the government issue a statement that using crypto would be subject to anti-money laundering laws.
Other Countries With Limited Bans
The above three countries have complete bans on cryptos. However - there are a few countries that have limited bans.
For instance:
- Vietnam - The public can use crypto as they please, but the government banned credit institutions from dealing in it.
- Kyrgyzstan - It is illegal to use bitcoin as a form of payment, but it can be bought and sold willingly.
- Iceland - They don't ban people from mining bitcoin. It seems that currency has be to created/found in country and cannot cross borders.
Source info for this post can be found here:
http://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-still-illegal-six-countries/
Regards,
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Retire Bolivia. Bolivia dose a lot of advertising to permoted it as a retirement place. In the future the only people that can afford to retire are the cyrto investers. There shooting themselfs in the foot.
Don't forget about the US since it's illegal in the state of NY unless you have a license to handle the currency. I don't know if it's just about Bitcoin tough, maybe someone else knows?
Oh man, that's right. I remember when I saw that I said to some friends "yet another reason I won't move back to NY." :-)
Haha! True
I'm quite surprised about Iceland. Would not expect them to be against it at all.
Yeah, there overall money laws are vague and tough to understand
Me too, in fact, I do not even understand how would they know if a Bitcoin "cross borders"...
To my knowledge they can't.
It seems kind of backwards that Countries would ban the use of any Currency. It seems like it would turn away travel to and from certain countries. But then again, common sense isn't always applied to public policy. Just look at the United States' failed drug war.
True and true!
They will catch on soon!
very interesting article!! thanks so much for sharing!!
My pleasure, thanks for reading!
Too bad they are missing out! Good to know for us though. Thanks for sharing!
The Iceland regulations are sort of interesting because IF they are adhering to that rule then they are also officially (by association) declaring that cryptos are a legitimate currency not just an investment asset class.
I would like to add, the news from Bolivia was for a group of people was doing a scheme ponzi with bitcoins called Bitcoin Cash. Obviously was victims from them denounced them, so they put all the information in the same square even bitcoins. It is the same as Colombia, the government don't have any idea about cryptocurrencies so the make out-law it, by the scheme ponzi some idiots did.
Yes, it is good that that group was stopped, but yeah they wrap it around bitcoin as a generalization, which is sad. I included a link to the article with the arrest info.
great post ! Thanks for the up vote ! Upped back !👍👍👍🍔
Thanks! My pleasure!
Your welcome and thanks for the upvote ! 👍😋🍔