Countries where Bitcoin is “banned”

[Gyfts]

We know that it is not possible to ban bitcoin directly, but to create mechanisms that make its use or acquisition difficult, running the risk of being arrested, fined or other problems with the government. And there are several countries where they create these impositions on Bitcoin.

A bitcoin "ban" codified as some arcane legal statute without any enforcement is what direction many countries are heading. It isn't an issue until they arbitrarily start targeting citizens by fining them or threatening them with jail time. Most people don't understand the legal jargon so they aren't vocally opposed.

The alternative to the laws are excessive taxes. Some governments have been brazen enough to suggest crypto gains need to be taxed at some insane rate even if the gain isn't realized, ie a "wealth tax".

[Little Mouse]

#Bangladesh - Officially there are bans on the use of cryptocurrencies, with penalties of up to 12 years. However, they have had a soft strategy on the subject, with no record of convictions.

While I have to agree that there's no apply of the law we have on cryptocurrencies, there are records of arrests and convictions. Maybe you don't know because you aren't from Bangladesh.
The law sounds very hard that one may get sentenced to jail for up to 12 years (it's 10 years I think) but it has never been applied to anyone to my knowledge. A few guys have been arrested and jailed for a few months. There was a guy namely Sohel and they were a team of 3 people. All have been sentenced to jail for a few months.

Well, there are some issues we should know in this case. There was a message from Bangladesh Bank to the detective branch that they shouldn't arrest someone for using cryptocurrency only. They should only be arrested when they find something fishy like illegal activities, crime, hacking, etc. Although this statement was withdrawn on the next day by Bangladesh Bank.
However, although Bangladesh Bank has withdrawn the statement, this is still applied in my opinion. The detective branch or Police has never arrested someone for using cryptocurrency only. All the guys who have been arrested and involved with cryptocurrency, are actually investigated and arrested for other criminal activities like fraud, hacking etc. They first have been arrested and later found to be involved in cryptocurrency. No one was arrested solely for using cryptocurrency. That's why I think though Bangladesh Bank has withdrawn the statement, they are secretly applying that. If someone is a criminal, arrest him. If someone uses cryptocurrency in general, no problem.

To anyone reading this from Bangladesh- this is just speculation about the statement of Bangladesh Bank. Don't take it as a law.

[Strongkored]

Indonesia only prohibits it as a means of payment, but people can still have it as an investment tool, that's why crypto exchanges in Indonesia will get a service license and if I'm not mistaken they will have a national crypto exchange that is officially managed by one of the ministries.
It is prohibited to use it as a means of payment because there is no law that will protect the parties involved in the transaction when there is fraud and so on, so that those who are harmed cannot make charge because it will only be in vain.
So people will exchange their Bitcoin to fiat if they want to make transactions, as I have always done so far.
However I'm pretty sure banning Bitcoin in those countries won't completely disqualify their citizens from owning Bitcoin but it is very limited and only for storage and sale on exchanges operating outside of their country.

[blckhawk]

I quickly looked for North Korea, and it's missing. I'm pretty confident it isn't allowed there either.  

They don't really have to bother banning bitcoin there as there's not a lot of people in the country that has electricity let alone Internet so it's a waste of time for them, their corrupt and incompetent cabinet of politicians probably don't care too much about that as they're more engaged with growing their arsenal to grow their reputation as a rogue nation and their hackers are probably using bitcoin to funnel stolen money to the country besides USD.

[pooya87]

#Iran - Cryptocurrencies mined outside the country cannot be traded

That makes no sense
Whoever came up with this joke had no idea how cryptocurrencies work. There is no such law in Iran and it wouldn't even be possible to enforce it since that would require ridiculously centralized exchanges that store a massive database with a complex blockchain analysis algorithm that can follow the coins that were mined domestically to prevent anything else from being traded LOL

A big joke indeed , and I personally believe that even with the complex blockchain analysis algorithm and other stuffs, they will still be loopholes available for bitcoins mined outside the country to be traded in the country, the person or those who came up with this restriction do not seem to understand the complexity in bitcoins decentralization or the decentralized part of Bitcoin, bitcoins on chain do not state where it was mined, who mined it or what type of machine was used to mine the Bitcoin, all this I stated would have been an easy way the Iran government would have used to enforce this restriction, but unfortunately for them, the block chain does not provide such data, so for me, I think it's near impossibility for such restriction to be enforced.

You don't seem to have read my comment! I made the important part bold for you. The joke is the one who created this false claim doesn't understand anything.

There is no such law or restriction in Iran, what happened is most probably some random clickbait media wrote a story misinterpreting some other related news or got lost in the translation and thought there is such a silly restriction!

My best guess is the news regarding how the government is willing to use the mined bitcoin (inside Iran) for imports. The clickbait media probably thought this means Iranian miners can't use their coins for anything else then they expanded the news to make it more clickbait-y by adding the part where coins mined abroad are not tradeable.
Now other sites are copying the same nonsense over and over.

[Odusko]

Although Bitcoin is illegal in these countries, almost all  countries people in these are familiar with Bitcoin and use Bitcoin more or less. Bitcoin is very easy to buy and sell so even if it is banned in a country anyone can buy it because Bitcoin can be bought through PayPal Various exchanges like Binance help to buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through p2p. So they are not a big problem.  Again the country India in your list has validity of other cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin so it is not logical to have india in your list.

The more reason why government need to look away from trying to ban or restrict bitcoin,  since Bitcoin is unstoppable at some point because of Bitcoin's decentralized nature so for that i am with the observation that most of the countries listed above in the ops are all not a none Bitcoin countries and citizens of those countries still hold bitcoin as asset.
Some of countries have hard rethought and sought ways to regulate Bitcoin even though it seems almost impossible and the only regulation will come through exchange and other Bitcoin services.

[icalical]

I think I will make a little correction for the Indonesian regulation, I live in Indonesia and I am offering service for international client and I mainly use Bitcoin and sometimes other crypto too. The thing is in Indonesia there is never a specific law that said Bitcoin is banned as form of payment, only that every payment/transaction that involve currency should only use Rupiah (the local fiat). So, not only Bitcoin but USD, GBP, and all other currency is banned as a form of payment for local transaction.

But there are also some exception that allows transaction with currency other than Rupiah, one of which is International Trading, including import and export of goods and services, so if you are a foreigner and wants to buy something from Indonesia to be sent to your location overseas it's legal to use Bitcoin, but if you come to visit Indonesia and buy locally you first need to exchange your bitcoin into Rupiah.

[Onyeeze]

The information is so misleading in many ways. Most of these countries still have active users and as stated by few users the countries that you have mentioned like Egypt, India, Russia, Kosovo and turkey are highly active in the crypto currency trading. You really need to verify the source and also verify information from at least different sources or local sources of those countries. The best way to do this is ask the local boards to participate in this voting and ask the actual situation about bitcoin in their countries.

Even though those countries ban bitcoin that doesn't mean that people living the country will not associate with bitcoin, in my country I have not be in the forum when government ban bitcoin and later the formal vice president in Nigerian made an announcement that bitcoin should be restricted not to ban bitcoin, before that time of the announcement people have being using bitcoin to trade and for other things, what I'm saying is that even though government ban bitcoin what remains will still remain in the bitcoin, so what I want us to understand in bitcoin is that Bitcoin for government to ban it, it will not affect the users of bitcoin.

[joker_josue]

First of all, I apologize for not responding to everyone or following the topic more closely. I'm out this weekend, and with limited access to the net.

That said, I admit that the topic title is a bit clickbait. 
Despite this, in the OP I make it clear that it is in many cases about restriction.

In addition, both I and all of us here on the forum know, that Bitcoin is impossible to be banned. Since there is always a way to use it, we import the country.

As you can understand, I do not know closely the reality of all the countries mentioned, and I point out that in most of them the restrictions are more paper than in reality

What would be expected, is for the forum members of these countries to make comments on this matter. I've seen that some did, and when I can I'll comment and add information to the OP. Thanks.

It was a search I did, not only based on the article mentioned but other information I found, in a couple of hours of research. Not to mention that the information that is being found is very inaccurate.

Thank you again for your comments and notes on the reality of these countries.

[coinerer]

Although Bitcoin is illegal in these countries, almost all  countries people in these are familiar with Bitcoin and use Bitcoin more or less. Bitcoin is very easy to buy and sell so even if it is banned in a country anyone can buy it because Bitcoin can be bought through PayPal Various exchanges like Binance help to buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through p2p. So they are not a big problem.  Again the country India in your list has validity of other cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin so it is not logical to have india in your list.

The more reason why government need to look away from trying to ban or restrict bitcoin,  since Bitcoin is unstoppable at some point because of Bitcoin's decentralized nature so for that i am with the observation that most of the countries listed above in the ops are all not a none Bitcoin countries and citizens of those countries still hold bitcoin as asset.
Some of countries have hard rethought and sought ways to regulate Bitcoin even though it seems almost impossible and the only regulation will come through exchange and other Bitcoin services.

Governments of countries where Bitcoin is still illegal always think that since Bitcoin is decentralized and no customer's identity can be tracked through its transactions and it does not require any authorization for its transactions, due to which anyone can transact large amounts without any problem.  And through this, crores of rupees are likely to be smuggled out of the country.  Which can never be brought back.  And that's why Bitcoin is still not considered a legal tender in some countries.

[Ale88]

I find it pretty incredible that two countries like those already had politicians who were aware of bitcoin was in 2014, and the law passed in 2014 it may even mean that they proposed the law back in 2013. These people/countries could have been years and years ahead anyone else in the world and, especially for Bolivia, their economy could have improved a lot.

The Bolivian ban wasn't a law but a Central Bank resolution, like I wrote above. It's not an absolute ban, but those entities who are subject to the Central Bank's authority are banned to use cryptocurrencies. But there are no fines for citizens using cryptoassets.

A Central Bank resolution can be decided in a month, or even a week if enough political will is there. I remember the Bolivian central bank had worries about the stability of the local currency, thus it implemented the ban.

Later there was a clarification (I think it was in 2018 or 2019) with more precisions about what was explicitly prohibited. I don't find the link to the document anymore, but basically, financial institutions can't use the local electronic financial networks for anything related to cryptocurrencies (we talked about that in the Spanish subforum), and local exchanges are prohibited to exist. The document mentioned however explicitly that the intention wasn't to ban blockchain tech entirely, and that innovations in this space (e.g. by software companies) weren't subjects of the regulation.

That doesn't change what I was saying: I am blown away by the fact that a country like Bolivia, with all due respect, was aware of bitcoin. I don't know where you are from, I'm Italian, and pretty much until last year we only had very few confusing laws about bitcoin and how it's supposed to be treated, very few things were clear, so whether it was a law or central bank decision, I still find it incredible. I don't know about you but in 2014 I had no idea what bitcoin was (unfortunately).

[leonair]

Although Bitcoin is illegal in these countries, almost all  countries people in these are familiar with Bitcoin and use Bitcoin more or less. Bitcoin is very easy to buy and sell so even if it is banned in a country anyone can buy it because Bitcoin can be bought through PayPal Various exchanges like Binance help to buy and sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies through p2p. So they are not a big problem.  Again the country India in your list has validity of other cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin so it is not logical to have india in your list.

The more reason why government need to look away from trying to ban or restrict bitcoin,  since Bitcoin is unstoppable at some point because of Bitcoin's decentralized nature so for that i am with the observation that most of the countries listed above in the ops are all not a none Bitcoin countries and citizens of those countries still hold bitcoin as asset.
Some of countries have hard rethought and sought ways to regulate Bitcoin even though it seems almost impossible and the only regulation will come through exchange and other Bitcoin services.

Governments of countries where Bitcoin is still illegal always think that since Bitcoin is decentralized and no customer's identity can be tracked through its transactions and it does not require any authorization for its transactions, due to which anyone can transact large amounts without any problem.  And through this, crores of rupees are likely to be smuggled out of the country.  Which can never be brought back.  And that's why Bitcoin is still not considered a legal tender in some countries.

Yes the fear of money laundering can be a big problem for some countries not to legalize Bitcoin. But in various ways Bitcoin is being used even in countries where Bitcoin is illegal so how can the government stop it? These things are happening because the government is far behind in terms of laws or technology.  So it's just a failure for that country.  Are the countries that have legalized Bitcoin suffering economically or are they developing more economically? As far as I know no country has been affected by Bitcoin legalization so far.  So why are the countries that have not yet legalized Bitcoin still fearing it?

[TimeTeller]

First of all, I apologize for not responding to everyone or following the topic more closely. I'm out this weekend, and with limited access to the net.

That said, I admit that the topic title is a bit clickbait.  
Despite this, in the OP I make it clear that it is in many cases about restriction.

In addition, both I and all of us here on the forum know, that Bitcoin is impossible to be banned. Since there is always a way to use it, we import the country.

As you can understand, I do not know closely the reality of all the countries mentioned, and I point out that in most of them the restrictions are more paper than in reality

What would be expected, is for the forum members of these countries to make comments on this matter. I've seen that some did, and when I can I'll comment and add information to the OP. Thanks.

It was a search I did, not only based on the article mentioned but other information I found, in a couple of hours of research. Not to mention that the information that is being found is very inaccurate.

Thank you again for your comments and notes on the reality of these countries.

That is true, those who are currently residing in those listed countries can give the reality of how crypto is being treated in their country.
Because the information that we can see over the net, may be different to what they are experiencing right now.
As this market is hard to regulate and control, people will always find a way how to go around their government protocols.
This is why this forum is great to know the actuality as we have members coming from those countries mentioned, and they can attest what is actually happening as they are still crypto users up until now.
The OP can add those information provided by those users in that list and see how each citizen is managing to deal with crypto in their respective country.

[2Pizza410000BTC]

#Bangladesh - Officially there are bans on the use of cryptocurrencies, with penalties of up to 12 years. However, they have had a soft strategy on the subject, with no record of convictions.

How do you think bitcoin users deal with these situations?
How do they manage to get around these restrictions without getting caught?
Do you think, what more countries can join this list?

It is doubtful whether there are any positive policies regarding the acceptance of Bitcoin in Bangladesh for the time being in the distant future. Bitcoin legalization in Bangladesh has not been possible so far due to negative reasons especially political unrest, money laundering, black market, international smuggling etc.

In terms of Bangladesh there are about 40 lakh Bitcoin users all indirectly involved in Bitcoin transactions avoiding the eyes of the law. But in all these situations Bitcoin users are often prosecuted and sent to jail with fines.

I generally have not been involved in any bitcoin transactions until now. Moreover, I involved myself in Bitcoin forums completely anonymously. Since Bitcoin is never legalized in my country, I always have to engage in Bitcoin transactions undercover. Since I have not completed my studies till now I will be involved in Bitcoin transactions in a completely confidential manner.

However, there are many countries in the world that are taking fruitful plans to accept Bitcoin. They may accept Bitcoin in the coming years but many countries are banning Bitcoin after accepting it again. Maybe one day everyone in the world will accept but countries that do not have the skills or power to control Bitcoin will again take steps to ban Bitcoin.

[wxa7115]

That is true, those who are currently residing in those listed countries can give the reality of how crypto is being treated in their country.
Because the information that we can see over the net, may be different to what they are experiencing right now.
As this market is hard to regulate and control, people will always find a way how to go around their government protocols.
This is why this forum is great to know the actuality as we have members coming from those countries mentioned, and they can attest what is actually happening as they are still crypto users up until now.
The OP can add those information provided by those users in that list and see how each citizen is managing to deal with crypto in their respective country.

When taking a look at the list one of the things I noticed is that many of those countries are still in a development stage, and this means that for example the police and the tax agency of the country is nowhere near as strong as what you can expect in a country like the US and the IRS.

This allows people to be very open about the fact they have adopted bitcoin and still not suffer any negative consequences, so it is not like they have to go out of their way to hide what they are doing despite the fact it is illegal to hold their coins there.

[Little Mouse]

What would be expected, is for the forum members of these countries to make comments on this matter. I've seen that some did, and when I can I'll comment and add information to the OP. Thanks.

I will write an article on Bitcoin and Bangladesh and share it here in the Bitcoin discussion. I will PM you the link once posted.

But in all these situations Bitcoin users are often prosecuted and sent to jail with fines.

Often prosecuted? In Bangladesh? I really have no idea then. Can you please mention a few of the prosecutions involving Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency transactions? I'm only aware of a few including Sohel and the gang scam and the guy who bought Audi with hacking money and got arrested. Maybe there are a few more incidents but I didn't know that it's happening OFTEN. By any chance, are you misusing the word OFTEN?

I generally have not been involved in any bitcoin transactions until now. Moreover, I involved myself in Bitcoin forums completely anonymously. Since Bitcoin is never legalized in my country, I always have to engage in Bitcoin transactions undercover. Since I have not completed my studies till now I will be involved in Bitcoin transactions in a completely confidential manner.

Interesting that you haven't been involved in any Bitcoin transaction until now. If I can remember correctly I have been watching you for the last few months, actively engaging in the forum regarding cryptocurrency discussion. Anyway, it sounds great that people are interested in learning about Bitcoin regardless of whether they are using it or not. Since you are using the forum anonymously, I suppose you are using TOR by default. If you aren't yet, make sure you are using the forum through the TOR browser only.

[AnonBitCoiner]

The article presents 18 countries that have created restrictions on Bitcoin. Here is a small compilation of what is involved in these restrictions in these countries.

Pakistan country is not included in this lis which has also restricted buying Bitcoins through credit card/bank and dealing btc or any cryptocurrency is strictly prohibited. No one jailed or fined so far but still we cannot deal crypto openly. Government thinks that allowing btc will increase the money laundering which is not ease to track. The biggest reason is that our citizens involved in many ponzi schemes project and gave been scammed many times by japanese and Chinese ponzi schemes which force government to create ban on Bitcoin.

How do you think bitcoin users deal with these situations?

If i talk about my country so without getting banned people are using btc normally and they use P2P to buy sell btc. most of P2P merchants are from foreign countries (UAE, Saudi arab and Qatar) and own country merchants are also available. hence there is no research team for checking and no one bank account is restricted so far therefore all works going normally. we can easily use any exchange (kyc and no kyc) for trading purpose and also can hold in our wallets. Many time bill introduce to stop Crypto related activities but so far no official strict rules has been announced.

How do they manage to get around these restrictions without getting caught?

answers already given, using P2P for buying and selling so no bank history for buying selling. If any research team given task then P2P transaction will also catch but still not happened yet

[Plaguedeath]

They don't really have to bother banning bitcoin there as there's not a lot of people in the country that has electricity let alone Internet so it's a waste of time for them, their corrupt and incompetent cabinet of politicians probably don't care too much about that as they're more engaged with growing their arsenal to grow their reputation as a rogue nation and their hackers are probably using bitcoin to funnel stolen money to the country besides USD.

North Korea is really a private country, they might be aware of Bitcoin existence, but since they already restrict most of websites and all of their internet connection are being tracked, they might think there's nothing to declare Bitcoin is illegal. As long as there's no citizen act something suspicious, they will think their dictatorship are still working and has no issue.

I don't think North Korea is full of hackers lol, it's a high assumption.

[WatChe]

Pakistan country is not included in this lis which has also restricted buying Bitcoins through credit card/bank and dealing btc or any cryptocurrency is strictly prohibited. No one jailed or fined so far but still we cannot deal crypto openly. Government thinks that allowing btc will increase the money laundering which is not ease to track. The biggest reason is that our citizens involved in many ponzi schemes project and gave been scammed many times by japanese and Chinese ponzi schemes which force government to create ban on Bitcoin.

In Pakistan the government through its law enforcement agency aka FIA conducted operations against crypto enthusiastic last year. People who bought crypto through there credit cards were given notices. Moreover people who do mining are arrested very often. Government thinks that bitcoin will do money laundering but our last Prime minister was given clean chit in money laundering of 16 billion Pak Rupees. Government thinks what's best in there interest not about people.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

The information is so misleading in many ways. Most of these countries still have active users and as stated by few users the countries that you have mentioned like Egypt, India, Russia, Kosovo and turkey are highly active in the crypto currency trading. You really need to verify the source and also verify information from at least different sources or local sources of those countries. The best way to do this is ask the local boards to participate in this voting and ask the actual situation about bitcoin in their countries.

Even though those countries ban bitcoin that doesn't mean that people living the country will not associate with bitcoin, in my country I have not be in the forum when government ban bitcoin and later the formal vice president in Nigerian made an announcement that bitcoin should be restricted not to ban bitcoin, before that time of the announcement people have being using bitcoin to trade and for other things, what I'm saying is that even though government ban bitcoin what remains will still remain in the bitcoin, so what I want us to understand in bitcoin is that Bitcoin for government to ban it, it will not affect the users of bitcoin.

Maybe we should just get the clarification just once and for all, the ban we are talking about is of two types, the one that the government place on the banks from using bitcoin and the one the government enact as law against the people from using bitcoin for any acceptable means of payment, so there could be ba as well as bitcoin being an acceptable means of payment which indicates banks were banned but it's legal to use bitcoin in most applicable countries.