There are about 51 countries have placed ban on the use and trade of Cryptocurrencies within their economies.
Report by Library for Congress (LoC) revealed that nine countries placed absolute ban on cryptocurrency, while 42 countries placed implicit restrictions on the digital assets.
The report also revealed that total number of jurisdictions with an absolute ban or total restrictions on cryptocurrency has more than doubled in the last 3 years. The nine jurisdictions with an absolute ban include Algeria, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Tunisia.
According to the report, as of November 2023, more than 103 jurisdictions have in one way or the other attempted to regulate cryptocurrencies in terms of the issuance of tax laws, anti-money laundering and combatting the funding of terrorism (AML/CFT) laws, or both. This represents a 212.12% increase from 2018, where only 33 jurisdictions were found to have regulated cryptocurrencies. These jurisdictions include the European Union Member States, with the exception of Bulgaria.
Library of Congress is the research library for the United States Senate, which acts as the national library for the country. In the context of the LOC report, an absolute ban means any “transactions with or holding cryptocurrency is a criminal act”, whereas an implicit ban prohibits cryptocurrency exchanges, banks, and other financial institutions from “dealing in cryptocurrencies or offering services to individuals/businesses dealing in cryptocurrencies.”
Despite the clampdown on crypto by some government authorities, the cryptocurrency market has kept on expanding in terms of market size and performance .
The government of El-Salvador in 2021 legalised Bitcoin as legal tender in the country.
It is expected that more more countries will move to ban cryptocurrencies either absolute or implicit, owing to the fact that many countries have started introducing their own central bank digital currencies, CBDCs, and some other countries who had placed restrictions on the cryptocurrency will being to lift the restrictions, seeing the global adoption of the digital currency.
Full List of Countries that Have Implemented Ban on Cryptocurrency
- Algeria — Absolute ban
- Bahrain — Implicit ban
- Bangladesh — Absolute ban
- Benin — Implicit ban
- Bolivia — Implicit ban
- Burkina Faso — Implicit ban
- Burundi — Implicit ban
- Cameroom — Implicit ban
- Central African Republic — Implicit ban
- Chad — Implicit ban
- China — Absolute ban
- Cote d`Ivoire — Implicit ban
- Democratic Republic of Congo — Implicit ban
- Ecuador — Implicit ban
- Egypt — Absolute ban
- Gabon — Implicit ban
- Georgia — Implicit ban
- Guyana — Implicit ban
- Indonesia — Implicit ban
- Iraq — Absolute ban
- Jordan — Implicit ban
- Kazakhstan — Implicit ban
- Kuwait — Implicit ban
- Lebanon — Implicit ban
- Lesotho — Implicit ban
- Libya — Implicit ban
- Macao — Implicit ban
- Maldives — Implicit ban
- Mali — Implicit ban
- Moldova — Implicit ban
- Morocco — Absolute ban
- Namibia — Implicit ban
- Nepal — Absolute ban
- Niger — Implicit ban
- Nigeria — Implicit ban
- Oman — Implicit ban
- Pakistan — Implicit ban
- Palau — Implicit ban
- Qatar — Absolute ban
- Saudi Arabia — Implicit ban
- Senegal — Implicit ban
- Tajikistan — Implicit ban
- Tanzania — Implicit ban
- Togo — Implicit ban
- Tunisia — Absolute ban
- Turkey — Implicit ban
- Turkmenistan — Implicit ban
- United Arab Emirates — Implicit ban
- Vietnam — Implicit ban
- Zimbabwe — Implicit ban