Bitcoin Forum

It seems to me there is much fear whether Bitcoin is legal or not in many places around the world. It isnunderstandable as most countries do not yet have systemic legislation on crypto assets, going as far as not even being able to legally define crypto currencies.

The answer to the question if Bitcoin is legal in such circumstances will depend on where one is from and the legal principles enshrined in their legal systems. In English common law system there is a principle that everything that is not expressly forbidden, is allowed. Try to find out if this is a principle where you are from. It has been adopted in many other countries as well.

Your starting point can be your consistution. If there is a general principle of freedom enacted in your constitution, it is a good start.

The next important principle in many legal systems is that there can be no crime nor criminal reprecusions if there was no previous law prohibiting certain acts as criminal (precisely), in latin: Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali, also: lege certa. This principle should be widely accepted around the world. Again, check your constitution. This principle guarantees that at the very least one will not be criminally persecuted for acquiring, holding or selling crypto assets if there was no law criminalising these actions at the time when they were executed.

I hope this will help the beginning of one's search if they are troubled by these questions.

Yes, the two principles you indicated are the fundamental civil and criminal codes of most states.

Indeed, the principle of free enterprise, which states that any transactions are assumed to be lawful, if they are not subject to direct prohibiting norms and if these transactions or other actions do not contradict the generally accepted rules of behavior in society. In other words - what is not forbidden is allowed.

Also, as a general rule, only a guilty unlawful act or omission, which is expressly provided for in the criminal code as a crime, can be considered a crime. Any illegal action or inaction is not considered if it is not provided for in the criminal code as a crime and, as a general rule, the determination of the crime of such actions is not retroactive, that is, it does not extend over time to the same actions that were committed before the recognition of such actions criminal.

Here I will clarify 2 legal issues.
1. Violation of the law is not absolutely equal to crime. crime is violating the criminal law, violating other laws is only illegal, but not crime.
2. The law is a complex system, it is not only the law articles, but also includes certain precedents.

Now let me talk about the legality of Bitcoin.
1. In some countries, although they ban bitcoin, such as China, in fact, people in their country holding/trading bitcoin is not illegal, on the contrary, trading bitcoin is also protected by law.
Why is there such a contradiction, it is very simple, because their financial laws clearly indicate that bitcoin is not recognized as "currency" and that bitcoin is prohibited as a settlement method，but their civil law also stipulates that virtual assets should be treated as property.  So when someone trades Bitcoin to be cheated, who can apply civil law to protect rights. The same case in many countries where their law does not recognize bitcoin as “currency,” but generally recognizes the value of “virtual goods”.

2. There is a basic principle in criminal law: The crime must be express clearly in article , which means that if the transaction/holding of bitcoin is not clearly defined a crime act in the criminal law, then it is not a crime.
There is also a basic principle in civil law: If not prohibited by civil law is free act, which means that if the civil law does not explicitly prohibit transaction/holding of bitcoin, then you are free to do it.
Judging from the combination of criminal law and civil law, no country currently writes bitcoin as a criminal act in criminal law, and no country prohibits bitcoin transactions in civil law. So in my opinion, The act for transaction/holding bitcoin is “worldwide legality”.

3. The law has a clear jurisdictional jurisdiction, which may be the Personal jurisdiction, territorial jurisdiction, and jurisdiction of acts. Usually, you can choose the one that is most beneficial to you.  So, as long as your country’s bitcoin is legal, you don’t need to consider what other countries’ laws are, because you can choose the laws that apply to your country. At this point, you don't have to fear the laws of other countries.

4. From the point of view of legal evidence, Bitcoin also cannot be banned because his anonymity and dispersion determine that Bitcoin cannot be clearly identified as “belonging” to someone. You only control it by private key. It has no mark with your name/ID，no ownership registration with your name/ID, so even if a country rule that holding bitcoin is a criminal act, they cannot lock your holding bitcoin act from the evidence.

Most likely, more and more laws can only approve the status of Bitcoin instead of denying it.

I do agree with your opinion that mostly people are doubt about bitcoin whether or not it is legal or illegal, and yes it influenced by which country you are from, since some countries are allow it, and some of others banned it. Reading can help, gain knowledge about the constitution in your country is a good start to be done firstly before you explore everything about crypto.
And talking about law, I don't really know much about it, what can be considered as crime, which one is not, I don't really get it. I think I need to find a lot more about law towards bitcoin as the currency.

Find the criminal code of your country and check if crypto currency is criminalised.

A lot of people also have the same thinking when it comes to taxes, I remembered a lot of members here believed that earning cryptocurrencies is tax exempted which is a laughable idea to start of as I don't even know where they get the idea of earning BTC and then not paying taxes associated to it. My common sense reasoning is if cryptocurrency earning are tax exempted none of us will be using Fiat currency anymore as a way to avoid taxes in the future which is not happening as none of their assumption is true.

If a cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin, is not yet regulated by the state, which is still present in most countries, then its circulation in the country, as a general rule, should be recognized as legal. Also, if the rules establishing taxation in a particular state have not yet been introduced, then the cryptocurrency can be freely used without fear of the tax authorities.
Only when the cryptocurrency will be legalized by the state, from now on, you need to know the rules established by them for the circulation of cryptocurrency and be guided by them.

There's a pretty good Wikipedia entry that lists the legal status by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country_or_territory

Its status is certainly murky in some places, though. The Russian Prosecutor General once stated (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-bitcoin/russian-authorities-say-bitcoin-illegal-idUSBREA1806620140209?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews) that using Bitcoin was illegal because "money substitutes" were prohibited under Russian law. Two years later, the national tax authority said (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country_or_territory#Eurasia) bitcoins were "not illegal." Last year, the Deputy Finance Minister said it's "probably illegal" to accept cryptocurrency payments. :D

In Russia, until today, it cannot be said that they are going to accept there with regard to legalization of cryptocurrency. Representatives of the prosecutor's office of Russia speak so negatively about the possibility of circulation of cryptocurrency as a means of payment, since their constitution states that only the ruble can be the only means of payment in this country. Therefore, there has even been a bill introducing criminal responsibility for using cryptocurrency as a means of payment. Of course, the question arises, how is the dollar, the euro and other international currency now circulating in Russia?

For the safety reason every country should banned it first as normal procedure to ensure that they could review it well so that they will not regret in the end but fortunately i see no country that after legalizing they banned Bitcoin because they realize that they will not getting any profit from it.

For your information bitcoin cannot be banned by anyone,it is an decentralized entitty working on its own blockchain network if the people want to use it they can,governments may not trace all the transactions.ANd also I don't agree that they have to an first because cryptos have much advantages for the people and governments will merely enjoy few taxes from crypto currencies that is why they are looking to restrict its usage.

I definitely think that in the majority of countries around the world, bitcoin is legal until some form of restriction gets put onto it by the government.

The reason is simple - there are many unregulated fields that are operating right now, none of them necessarily having any legislation around them. But it doesn't mean that they are illegal because there isn't anything explicit saying that.

It makes no sense to prosecute someone without any laws backing it, but of course, if you live in a totalitarian state that would be completely different. But all laws that attempt to ban the use of bitcoin is honestly useless because there is simply 0 enforceability around it with the decentralisation of bitcoin.

I think legal...so long is not yet term illegal!
The good news is that even those countries where bitcoin is illegal....trades still happen in bitcoin!

I'm pretty ignorant outside of common law countries, where that's a general truism. There are definitely places like Russia where it's unclear because things like "monetary substitutes" are prohibited, and no one knows exactly how Bitcoin is categorized. The Russian prosecutor general and other officials have actually stated that using Bitcoin is illegal, but it's never been brought before the courts.

That's the beauty of it. I think most governments realize that officially prohibiting cryptocurrency and trying to enforce it will only expose their impotence.

This is the sum total of the brilliant idea that you have made because it is also like saying that you don't put something on nothing and expect it to stand .

About the inscription of digital currency in the constitution, I'm sure that countries who want to pursue the taxing of cryptocurrency would start amending the areas that deal with financial laws in their constitution.

Yes, that's right. As far as I know, one is deemed legal when there is no law declaring that it is illegal that's why using cryptocurrency in a country when there is no rule of banning it means that people are free to use cryptocurrency and spend it to whatever they wanted as long as what they are doing is allowed by law. When they spend it on something that is illegal like buying drugs or use it in criminal activities that would render it as illegal.

one the main principles of democracy is everything which is not forbidden is allowed
hence if  cryptocurrencies are not banned, you are free to use them as you please
unless you break any of the existing laws while using them, since there could be tax evasion, money laundering and some other surprises
basically, if the government wants to screw you, it will screw you legal or illegal

Bitcoin is a digital product. It is a bunch of codes and not a physical asset. And as far as I know, no one in the world can say that you cannot own a particular set of programming codes, unless the government brings a law for this purpose.

Governments are slow with catching up on everything that's happening here because they absolutely love the gray area they can use against you at any time of the day, even when you did nothing wrong.

It has been happening in Russia for years now that the government there selectively stands up against anything it deems as a potential threat to their existing system. Maybe that applies to India and China as well.

I'm glad that people and businesses keep doing what they think is right, because it's way easier for them to abide by what the government tells them is right or wrong. This is the power of crypto. :)

To make the explanation much simpler why will Bitcoin be banned if there is no law banning it? Not unless your country has a law where all new kinds of assets are banned until it is classified, all things that have no laws governing it will be legal. That is why some laws now are with assistance of people who got away with it as they have found a loophole because there is now law governing it. You can freely use your BTC even if your living in a country that has neutral views to it, they simply just don't care to either exploit or break the situation.

Well, technically, you'd have to have some sort of legislation that is put in place before bitcoin can be considered to be outlawed.

However, a country can be very negative towards the adoption of bitcoin, and show signs that they are actively trying to restrict people's access to bitcoin, without necessarily having to have the legislation to back it up. For example, banning banks from dealing with crypto businesses and transactions by the RBI, which is not technically law.

In that case, you never know when exactly restrictions are going to come down so you may want to be more careful when dealing with crypto services. But generally, you shouldn't be worried about an unregulated bitcoin market which is still the case in many countries at the moment, if there is no specific laws stating otherwise. And even if there was, I doubt that ownership would be illegal, it would be a trading ban at maximum in most cases.

Law is a subject to change so do the investment platform because it's always change based on current situation.
Government make a new regulation against crypto because there is so much demand for it so regulation is needed. As we know that crypto still consider as risky investment so people must aware of the crypto risk before it's too late

it seems that everyone always has problems with taxes, we have to realize that tax revenues are needed to build a country, without the state tax to be destroyed and the owners of bitcoins also destroyed because the country is destroyed, so don't always avoid taxes, except criminals who are afraid of taxes, bitcoin only currency, we as entrepreneurs who use bitcoin have nothing wrong with being taxpayers, because the benefits will also affect bitcoin itself.

As long as any government is not declaring that bitcoin is illegal. I think we can say its legal. And we can all continue doing it and we can still get all the benefits that bitcoin give us.