Bitcoin Forum

A governmental committee comprised of Saudi Arabian regulators has issued a statement clarifying that cryptocurrency trading is illegal in the kingdom. According to a statement issued Sunday, the standing committee warned against trading in cryptocurrencies due to "negative consequences and high risks on traders as they are out of government supervision."
Full article on Coindesk (https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-trading-is-illegal-in-saudi-arabia-warn-watchdogs/)

How do cooperation between Ripple and Saudi central bank go?

It doesn't involve XRP so it's all good.

Ripple the company has signed a deal to provide a software solution called xCurrent, making it easier and more efficient for banks to transfer value from one place to another.

People quite often think that XRP is being adopted by financial institutions and whatnot, but that's false 9 out of 10 times. It's just Ripple the company setting up infrastructure and that's really it. XRP is nothing more than a redundant aspect only functioning as make Brad Garlinghouse a multi dollar billionaire tool.

These sort of policies towards bitcoin really make no sense to me.

They claim to be trying to protect their citizens from a high risk investment, but in reality, bitcoin is probably a much better store of value than most of the fiat currencies that governments around the world are issuing right now in the long run. By outlawing instead of regulating exchanges within your country, you're actually generating even more risk for the users.

Probably just trying to restrict access to bitcoin, instead of what they claim to be doing, which is risk reduction for consumers. But anyhow - I doubt that this would impact the p2p trading going on on LBC and paxful within the local area. That's basically impossible to track and shut down.

This news is incorrect or misunderstood.
The source of this news is here[1], "Unfortunately there are some mistakes in translation."
The original version is in Arabic [2] talk about:

 - Cryptocurrencies are not supported within the Kingdom, and dealing with it is risky.
 - Bitcoin is not considered a certified currency in the Kingdom, and therefore the allegations "that is a certified currency" in the Kingdom is incorrect.

Accordingly, Bitcoin is not considered a certified currency Not "Bitcoin Trading Is Illegal in Saudi Arabia"
also, There is a Bitcoin ATM in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia[3]

[1] http://www.sama.gov.sa/en-US/News/Pages/news12082018.aspx
[2] http://www.sama.gov.sa/ar-sa/News/Pages/news12082018.aspx
[3] https://coinatmradar.com/country/187/bitcoin-atm-saudi-arabia/

Thank you for pointing out the misunderstanding. Knowing that they have an ATM in Saudi Arabia is just an evidence that they do not consider it as illegal. Maybe sooner or later when more Middle East would consider adopting cryptocurrencies like UAE then they would just regulate it then instead of restricting people to have dealings with transactions.


Government would rather choose something that they control which is fiat than having bitcoin as a "certified currency" because they may not benefit from the transactions and as what they say, they are afraid that people will involve themselves in something illegal because of anonymity feature of it.

However, at the end of the Arabic article, it stated that, "The committee is working with relevant governmental authorities to limit/reduce ForEx and 'Virtual Digital Currencies' trading and investment marketing, and confronting them." This statement and the next (about encouraging people to report those who offer that kind of marketing) surely rub cryptocurrencies the wrong way.  

Well now thats a sucker punch. They allowed cryptocurrency related businesses in their  country yet they prohibited the trading of it. If "supervision" is their problem maybe creating a new department who will monitor crypto trading would be a solution for them.  For me persobally I think this is temporary as they mighr be planning on having some kind of regulation in the future. As they can't really prevent all citizens on trading cryptocurrencies.

Good clarification.

I was nearly to believe such news and to tell that it isn't surprising for other countries decisions or views about bitcoin to be on illegal side.

If you read above on the post I quoted where theres wrong on the translation.