Germany legalizes Bitcoin, what is the current status in other countries? 

 

The German Federal Ministry of Finances considers Bitcoin as tax-exempt so long as it is used as a means of payment, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reported Thursday, March 1. The German federal authority published its decision to not subject purchases with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency to taxes on Feb. 27. Read more here.  

So what is happening in other countries? 

Japan 

Japan is certainly one of the best countries for cryptocurrency, or at least the best in G20. While local financial regulators closely follow all financial operations, Japan actually becomes a kind of "island of freedom" for cryptocurrencies. Although recently Takashi Shiono, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said that the cryptocurrency business in the future is likely to be taxed, this has little effect on the overall picture. Some experts even think that current tax rates for cryptocurrency can push big traders out of Japan. Still the majority of analysts are inclined to the fact that Japan will become the first state where the cryptocurrency will be completely legalized - in all aspects of its existence.  

Singapore

In January Singapore's deputy prime minister stated that he sees no difference between operations involving paper money and operations with cryptocurrency. Can we consider it as an official position of the state? So MAS - Monetary Authority of Singapore talks more about protecting investors, than of imposing any prohibitions. A lot of cryptocurrency projects have chosen Singapore jurisdiction. 

Switzerland 

Switzerland is home to a great number of banks from the old style fiat world. At the same time it is far closer to acceptance of cryptocurrency than other states in Europe. The Swiss Minister of Economy, in January made the following statement: "Cryptocurrencies have become part of the fourth industrial revolution. We will monitor what will come of this as a result.” So we can tell the government is cautious about cryptocurrencies, but still friendly.  

Belarus 

To my surprise, Belarus, which is sometimes called the "last totalitarian state of Europe" is extremely positive to cryptocurrencies. President Alexander Lukashenko signed a law that will make all operations with cryptocurrencies legal in March. It will be possible to trade cryptocurrencies and create exchanges within High-Tech Park. Also there will be no taxes for 5 years. 

South Korea 

We faced lots of FUD coming from South Korea at the beginning of this year. Nevertheless, the government is quite positive to cryptocurrencies right now. Now all traders must go through KYC, but still every third investor in South Korea has more than $5000 in cryptocurrencies. A lot of exchanges continue working from the country. Now the government is not going to prohibit operations with cryptocurrencies. 

Venezuela 

In Venezuela, everything is serious. The economic situation in the state is complicated. A lot of people there turned to crypto and the government decided to take the situation into their own hands. If I am not mistaken, Venezuela  Is now the first country to launch national cryptocurrency EL Petro.  

Canada 

The government attitude to cryptocurrency is complicated, but still can be called more or less liberal. Cryptocurrencies are not banned here, but the government still warns about the risks of investing into cryptocurrencies. I think we can expect that regulation in Canada will be more or less similar to the one in USA as Canada is a member of NASAA. 

Republic of South Africa 

A lot of developing countries embrace blockchain technology and see it as a new approach to solve own problems. Republic of South Africa is not an exception. People here can’t invest as much as people form South Korea, but there are still a lot of people involved in cryptocurrency. Official regulation are being discussed, but you even can pay traffic fines in bitcoins.  

Australia 

In general, the Australian authorities are neutral towards the Crypto-currency. We are seeing more and more projects coming from this country. Official regulations are not ready yet (like in all other countries), but I believe everything will be fine with crypto here. 

USA 

On the one hand, bitcoin futures were allowed in December 2017. On the other hand, SEC regularly issues warnings, prohibits ICO and threatens to tighten control. The general approach is to regulate cryptocurrency to protect investors from scam, collect taxes and prohibit illegal operations, but US regulators don’t want to actually block technology development.  

Russia 

A year ago we were discussing how many years of prison will we get for trading bitcoin. Now we discuss what regulation will be. So far it looks the government is curious about blockchain and tries to find the best way to benefit from it. There are a lot of suggestions on ICO regulation and how to put taxes on miners. Read more in one of my previous posts. 

Sources I used to write this article:   Cointelegraph |  Zefir |  Forklog

Please, tell me how cryptocurrency is regulated in your country in the comments!

Disclaimer 

I’m not a financial of any kind. I encourage you to check all information yourself and make decision only based on your own opinion.  

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