Zimbabwe Bans All Cryptocurrency Activity

[imyashir]

Zimbabwe’s central bank issued Circular to Banking Institutions No. 2/2018: Virtual Currencies, effectively banning all crypto activity in the African nation. Businesses dealing in decentralized currencies have 60 days to comply.

Full articles: https://news.bitcoin.com/zimbabwe-bans-all-cryptocurrency-activity-businesses-have-2-month-grace-period/?utm_source=OneSignal%20Push&utm_medium=notification&utm_campaign=Push%20Notifications

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[elemosho.crypto]

If so, then it is not a good sign or news for the industry. I hope their govt re-consider the situation and accept it. Even if there is any barrier, they can try to resolve it.

[YED]

Issued 11 May, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the country’s central bank, laid out seven points in ordering the shutter of things crypto within the southeast African nation. Referencing two previous circulars going back as far as three years ago, the notice explains “’banking institutions’ attention is once again drawn to the risks involved with virtual currencies and the need to ensure strict adherence to sound risk management. Our investigations have revealed that the major cryptocurrency exchanges facilitating the trade of virtual currencies in Zimbabwe are Bitfinance (Private) Limited (Golix) and Styx24. Golix has gone further to set up an ATM machine through which cryptocurrency transactions are facilitated.”

[franky1]

this is not a citizen /private business ban.. calm down

this is a standard memo to BANKS. that BANKS(financial institutions) continue to only handle FIAT and not other things like toilet roll beanie baies, or crypto.
banks have rules and regulations to only handle fiat. these rules have been around for decades. way way way before bitcoin was even a thing. so this memo is just a reminder to banks to not directly handle crypto.

this does not mean citizens/private businesses are banned. it jsut means that banks will not let you get toilet roll, teddybears, crypto or baked beans from a bank branch. all a bank branch can offer is FIAT services


it is not a new LAW. its a reminder/memo(circular)
for banks to only offer only fiat services direct
you cannot buy a iphone in a bank branch. but that does not mean you cant buy a iphone/toilet roll/ baked beans.
nor does it mean that private citizens/businesses should have accounts shut down for offering things that a bank cant offer

[LeGaulois]

Exactly, and this country is not the only one. People misunderstand a lot of information or just read the title and come here to post it as fast as fast as possible without to understand the content... And such circulars are circulating inside banks offices since years in different countries.

[forumsehat]

This is very bad news, and Zimbabwe should not have to behave like that, because crypto currency can be used in Zimbabwean finances that are having problems with their currency.

[Rozita]

This kind of news always come from developing countries. These news don't make me worry about the future of bitcoin because bitcoin is not controlled by the governments. Just ignoring the advantages of cryptocurrencies by some governments make me sad.

[godfredmanu]

Zimbabwe Economy has no big impact in world economies and their ban in crypto currencies ,though a bad news , won't affect the price of cryptocurrencies. Even in that country I think only few middle class have heard of bitcoins.

[pitiflin]

this is not a citizen /private business ban.. calm down

People don't understand the meaning of ban here. You can buy and sell cryptocurrencies, via P2P exchange. You can trade them, hodl them and do anything under legal jurisdictions. If banks continue to deal with crypto related businesses, they would have to face consequences. And crypto business cannot function in that country anymore. That's what ban means.

[ronnis.gomes]

This decision does not cause any disturbance to the crypto market, as Zimbabwe's economy is irrelevant to the size of the world GDP

[Rozita]

this is not a citizen /private business ban.. calm down

People don't understand the meaning of ban here. You can buy and sell cryptocurrencies, via P2P exchange. You can trade them, hodl them and do anything under legal jurisdictions. If banks continue to deal with crypto related businesses, they would have to face consequences. And crypto business cannot function in that country anymore. That's what ban means.

Yes, you are right. People are always able to buy and sell bitcoin. They can trade it peer to peer. But some governments are trying to make it difficult for the people specially when they want to convert bitcoin to their national money or their national money to bitcoin.
Any way, governments cannot stop people completely.

[juragane]

in my opinion this is just some bad news that tries to deceive and make bitcoin prices down and collapse the target is the trading players who just started and they try to give the fear.

[crypto002]

this is not a citizen /private business ban.. calm down

this is a standard memo to BANKS. that BANKS(financial institutions) continue to only handle FIAT and not other things like toilet roll beanie baies, or crypto.
banks have rules and regulations to only handle fiat. these rules have been around for decades. way way way before bitcoin was even a thing. so this memo is just a reminder to banks to not directly handle crypto.

this does not mean citizens/private businesses are banned. it jsut means that banks will not let you get toilet roll, teddybears, crypto or baked beans from a bank branch. all a bank branch can offer is FIAT services

Well i dont think they are any banks that offer crypto to its customer thats for every country. but its good to hear thats not banned in zimbabwe . it was going through bbc news they were saying more and more university graduation are coming to crypto in African  countries because they dont have a good opportunity for employment. Crypto helps them a lot .

[Rkss4]

Very sad news, many countries already have banned bitcoin because they can't control bitcoin over their Fiat money trading system and bank fears bitcoin, hence they banned bitcoin.

[crzy]

If this news is true, I feel sad for those people their who are using cryptocurrency and hoping to make their lives better through this technology. Well, I still hope that this is not a final judgement, I know their government will support cryptocurrency in the future.

[simpleholmes]

even though this kind of countries ban everything related to crypto I think they would not have too much effect in the general market conditions as there are not too much whales in the mentioned country.

[davison2]

In as much as the government is fighting for their own personal gain, the unemployed and the people in general has more to gain than lose in the crypto world. so i'll say its really a bad decision.

[kwakufavour]

This is a poor move by the bank of Zimbabwe to hinder decentralization.
This is equal to zero as this will only hinder banks and not citizens who trade. Banks are just against blockchain technology taking over their financial systems as well. Crypto will rule at the end of the day.

[RuslanSamui]

Hello everyone, I do not think that such a country as Zimbabwe will be able to influence the crypto currency market, but in general, it is not very good for the world of crypto currency

[gentlemand]

so this memo is just a reminder to banks to not directly handle crypto.

this does not mean citizens/private businesses are banned. it jsut means that banks will not let you get toilet roll, teddybears, crypto or baked beans from a bank branch. all a bank branch can offer is FIAT services

Normally this would certainly be the case but these paragraphs imply otherwise -

“all financial institutions … ensure that they do not use, trade, hold and/or transact in any way in virtual currencies; ensure that they do not provide banking services to facilitate any person or entity in dealing with or settling virtual currencies; and exit any existing relationships with virtual currency exchanges within sixty days of the date of this Circular and proceed to liquidate and restitute existing account balances.”

"The ban includes “maintaining accounts, registering, trading, clearing, collateral arrangements, remittances, payment and settlement accounts, giving loans against virtual tokens, accepting them as collateral, opening accounts of exchanges dealing with them and transfer / receipt of money in accounts relating to purchase / sale of virtual currencies.”


Most of the time they say nothing about ending banking relationships with crypto exchanges and anyone trading it using banking, but that's much more explicit and comprehensive that usual.

No great loss to us. Could be a reasonably sized one to a few Zimbabweans.