Kuwait Bans Bitcoin and crypto payments, investement and mining

[taufik123]

Banning crypto as an investment, mining would be a bad thing, they can't even accept the development of technology.
Not thinking about the right regulation so that technology can still develop.
Investment or trade is an option that can be chosen actually instead of having to ban everything.

They follow in the footsteps of China who even banned Bitcoin completely, but China still continues to develop their own.

Such extreme regulations will only provide debate and severely limit their people.
If mining is also banned, then existing miners are banned and even expelled from their own country.
But will they be able to detect who will be involved in crypto thoroughly?

[CryptSafe]

Indeed, it took me by surprise. When I came across the news, I noticed that Bitcoin had not reacted as expected. Despite the negative news, there was no significant price drop, which left me astonished. I'm beginning to doubt whether a complete crypto ban is truly feasible. It appears that the authorities are primarily targeting organizations involved in crypto businesses rather than trying to ban decentralized cryptocurrencies outright. The fact is, banning decentralized cryptocurrencies is practically impossible. People will always find ways to utilize them, either through peer-to-peer exchanges or on the black market.

Most times these act of banning are just done by the government in power to targeting a particular organization or group of individuals that are perceived enemies or opposition. They do this to frustrate themselves and keep them on watch list. I am not surprised if in the nearest future news emanates that the sole reasons why the ban was implemented was targeted at some certain person's for some reasons because the government are always at it.

Lastly, I think that nation has no significance when it comes Crypto and probably they have no major players or big names in the industry hence the reason the ban did not effect bitcoin price and not only that, Bitcoin of lately has hard a tough time with the market pressure and is gradually becoming resistant to external force and pressure trying to control or manipulate the market direction and price.

[Dictator69]

I don't know how much this will affect the crypto market. But according to my knowledge, the adoption rate of BTC or crypto is too low in Kuwait but p2p trading is high them according to statistics . But still, i don't think this news needs that much attention than others like ETFs etc.

There must be some big manipulation might go on there that has forced authorities to shut down all the activities directly related to Crypto. Like even the mining too. Because it is much easier to perform mining there but for those who are foreigners. not for locals. due to inflation difference.

[Renampun]

bitcoin banned with accusations of being used for money laundering is FUD which is heard quite often and is used as an excuse by countries that don't like and support bitcoin. I am very sure that this accusation was prompted by the central bank of Kuwait, which does not want their business to be disturbed by the existence of Bitcoin there, even so, citizens who want to invest in Bitcoin can still do it secretly and without the knowledge of their government, access is not difficult (can use a VPN or take advantage of the TOR network).

[justdimin]

It doesn’t matter at all. This country had no significant contribution in the Bitcoin market at all. I don’t think having its geography near to UAE makes any different as well? They are not dependent country on the nearby countries of UAE so it really matters nothing. In fact any countries adoption or non adoption doesn’t mean anything to anyone. I believe this is going to be just another news in getting printed at some corner of the news paper and thrown in the dustbin after a day or so.

In fact most of the internationals would have never came to know about this news if it wasn’t posted here. It’s just the forum where we hear such news.

Frankly I never go online try to dig information whether any country has banned it or not. It means nothing. Bitcoin doesn’t really care about it.

That's true, this isn't that important and plus we weren't getting like tens of billions of dollars from Kuwait as well, it is only bad for the citizens there who liked to use it, which would not be possible after this current situation but I agree that overall the bitcoin market wouldn't be phased about this at all.

Sure there could be some people who might, I would understand something like that but that doesn't mean that it will be too long neither, I believe it is going to be just regular people and I would not be able to think that it would be a bit of a weird situation. In the end we are talking about a situation where it is going to be getting a bit of tougher for people to move on when more nations bans it, so I hope that doesn't happen.

[wiss19]

Well, that's one of the richest countries in the Middle East, and now they are out of the Bitcoin race which might not be that big of a problem for now but it will surely slow down the adoption process as a country with a lot of money and resources is not allowing their citizens to invest in Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, which is bad for the industry as there could a lot of money flowing if Kuwait had allowed their citizens to take part in the revolution.

However, Bitcoin still has a long way to go and I'm pretty sure that once the majority of countries make it legal and allow their people to invest in it, the countries which are now banning it will cancel or change their decisions and will lift the bans and restrictions on their citizens for using Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.

[Kavelj22]

I would like to point out two ideas to respond to those who were surprised by Kuwait taking this step:

First, why is Kuwait expected to support cryptocurrencies? I do not know why some positions condemning the news carried to my mind that Kuwait is a very influential element, or that it is more qualified to join the wave of support than others. Quite the contrary, which applies to many other countries in the region, if not all of them.

Secondly, cryptocurrencies in their various activities were not originally legalized in Kuwait, and the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Law has been in force since 2013 and can be used against any cryptocurrency user in Kuwait just by suspicion. This means that Kuwaiti users do not disclose their activities, and companies cannot provide services or benefit from cryptocurrency services in the absence of clear regulatory laws.

It seems that there was a great wave of optimism that hit everyone after the UAE adopted cryptocurrencies and regulated corporate activity. They are completely forgetting the nature of the economic and financial policy in the UAE based on openness and proceeding according to a clear vision for the UAE to become a center for modern technologies by 2030. Kuwait has nothing similar with UAE from all sides.

On the contrary, I expect that many countries will follow Kuwait in its decision and issue laws that clearly prohibit crypto based activities.

[Silberman]

Well, that's one of the richest countries in the Middle East, and now they are out of the Bitcoin race which might not be that big of a problem for now but it will surely slow down the adoption process as a country with a lot of money and resources is not allowing their citizens to invest in Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, which is bad for the industry as there could a lot of money flowing if Kuwait had allowed their citizens to take part in the revolution.

However, Bitcoin still has a long way to go and I'm pretty sure that once the majority of countries make it legal and allow their people to invest in it, the countries which are now banning it will cancel or change their decisions and will lift the bans and restrictions on their citizens for using Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.

The leaders of each country will have to decide what path to take, right now they are taking the path they think is the safest which is to just ban bitcoin and any activity related to it, however if we are right in our assumptions and bitcoin becomes as big as we think it can become then this move is going to hinder Kuwait and similar countries as they will be way behind the race, compared to the countries which decided to adopt a more friendly attitude towards bitcoin and this could cost them dearly on the future.

[Jating]

Yeah, just weird that the Kuwaiti government are preventing the growth of crypto. While their neighbors are doing the opposite. I had a talk with a friend who is working in Dubai right now and he asked me about what apps or exchanges I used to trade. So I said Binance, and he said that they are also looking at Binance because they want to do some training.

In any case though, if the Kuwaiti government will go against it then nothing we can do. But if there neighbouring countries become a crypto hub, maybe they will change their stance here.