I doubt that Colombia really outlawed Bitcoin (Spanish native speaker here).
Basically the letter is a reiteration of a similar letter from the "Superintendencia" (the Colombian FinCEN) from 2014. It says that cryptocurrencies are not the "legal tender" of Colombia, and that the only legal tender is the Peso (like many other Central Banks have already pointed out around the world). It warns its citizens from using it and says that they use it at their own risk.
The only thing it bans is that banks supervised by this entity operate with this kind of "virtual money". But that is nothing new, the 2014 letter already prohibited this.
The 2016 letter from the Superintendencia can be downloaded
here (Spanish).
Some excerpts from the original statement from 2014:
"El bitcoin no es una moneda en Colombia y, por lo tanto, no constituye un medio de pago de curso legal con poder liberatorio ilimitado. No existe entonces obligatoriedad de recibirlo como medio de cumplimiento de las obligaciones"
Basically, that means that it's not viewed as a currency and that's not mandatory to accept Bitcoins.
[las monedas virtuales] "no se encuentran respaldadas por activos físicos, por un banco central, ni por los activos o reservas de dicha autoridad, por lo que el valor de intercambio de las mismas podría reducirse drásticamente incluso a llegar a cero"
In this statement it says that they are not backed by a Central Bank and its exchange value could drop to zero.
That's pretty different from "outlawing" it. Some - even Colombian - newspapers have quoted it the wrong way.
Lol so op was just exaggerating or didn't understand it basically. Just because something isn't legal tender doesn't mean it's outlawed. I can use US dollars if I want. Some places will choose to accept it and some places will choose not to whereas if it's legal tender everyone everywhere accepts it. You won't walk into a bank and give them a $50 bill and hear "sorry, $50 bills aren't legal tender. If you have any $20 bills they are though!" Because it's already paid out by the government what is actually legal tender.
Basically, don't expect to be able to use bitcoins when you walk into a local business. But they aren't outlawed.
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