Yes many countries still banned bitcoin and Pakistan also in fact i was reading a article about it in this year 2019 January. Lot of popular country still not accept bitcoin legally but after movement i hope their will accept when any good inspection their will follow.
it sad to know that popular countries ban cryptos while not popular countries are accepting it but its not about the popularity that matter the most right ? but what import is that people that join on crypto still counts towards the adoption .
also , you said the article was on 2019 of january ? it was a long time ago and we are now on december so we dont know what if they revise that rule ? because many countries were also revising thier rules that they applied on crypto .
