Bitcoin Remain Illegal in 7 Countries - Are Governments Afraid of Losing Control

[The Cryptovator]

Despite the global Bitcoin adoption in seven countries, Bitcoin still remains banned officially. These seven countries are China, Algeria, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Iraq, and Qatar. During scrolling news, I found it on Cointelegraph Twitter that seven handful countries' Bitcoin remained banned. Here is the picture of the details.


"Image from Cointelegraph Twitter"

Most of these countries ban Bitcoin to prevent money laundering and some countries like China accusing it for high energy consumption from mining. I believe all these allegations are just shit. They don't have proper knowledge about Bitcoin or how it could keep its role in the global economy. Though countries are changing rules constantly, but I am not sure when they will make Bitcoin legal. There are a lot of ways for money laundering; still, people could do it through Bitcoin on the black market since it's decentralised. Means they just don't like Bitcoin because they can't control it.

Except for these seven countries, other countries seem to be moving forward to regulation to make it secure for their citizens. Do you think banning Bitcoin is a solution for money laundering and other allegations, or should countries move towards a regulation to keep up with the times?

[_act_]

Most of these countries ban Bitcoin to prevent money laundering

They are doing as if they do not know about money laundering. Money laundering is possible without bitcoin or any other cryptocurrencies.

some countries like China accusing it for high energy consumption from mining.

China that is the second in bitcoin hash rate generation. After the mining ban, the hash rate fell to zero, but later increased and become the second, although it was the first before the ban.

Except for these seven countries, other countries seem to be moving forward to regulation to make it secure for their citizens. Do you think banning Bitcoin is a solution for money laundering and other allegations, or should countries move towards a regulation to keep up with the times?

The last time that I saw this like 3 years ago, the countries were up to 11. Iran Central Bank recently listed their own crypto ban. Just let us not worry at all, these countries will see how they are lagging behind and go for regulation later.

It is good to know that many people in these countries are buying, selling and holding bitcoin. Bitcoin can not be banned completely if people do not want it to be banned, they will still find ways to trade it.

But I am wondering how the government and regulators in some countries are thinking because I do not think any country should still ban bitcoin in 2026.

In China, people have the legal right to own bitcoin as a property but not to use it as a currency.

[Donk1]

I just believe every government knows what they are doing and the answer here is simple anything that isn't under the government is a threat to them. Because they believe they are the supreme leaders which they are but that doesn't change the fact that we have the right and freedom to how we want to make use of our money financially.

​That said I believe there are many ways to regulate the issues of money laundering, so placing a ban on Bitcoin is just a mere excuse. Because even before Bitcoin existed money laundering has already been there. So yeah countries like Brazil, Australia, and even ,Pakistan that even banned Bitcoin for seven years are all trying to maintain a general regulation for the technology even if it's decentralized.

​Overall Bitcoin has protected many people's hard earned savings money especially in most countries with high inflation. So yeah placing a ban doesn't stop the fact that as individuals the need for a stable store of value is very necessary. Maybe if the government tries considering people's opinion before taking action it would be better thats all folks....

[asriloni]

Bitcoin remains officially banned in only a handful of countries, including China, Algeria, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Iraq, and Qatar, though regulations continue to evolve.

I don't think those countries are banning bitcoin due to the money laundering purpose. I'm sorry this may be a bit sensitive, but most of these countries are muslim-majority countries. It seems they're treating Bitcoin still against their religion.

Those countries are thinking Bitcoin is still against their sharia law. So they're still banning it instead of start to accept it as a commodity.

We know how Bitcoin was being declared as haram in most of muslim countries.

[Negotiation]

Governments usually prefer a system that they can directly control such as monetary policy or taxation. Since bitcoin is decentralized, it does not operate under the direction of a central bank this lack of control is a major challenge for many governments. As a citizen the financial freedom to choose how and where to invest your hard earned money should be a fundamental right. When it comes to money laundering, money laundering has been going on for hundreds of years before bitcoin and a large part of it still happens through the traditional banking system. Therefore it is not right to blame bitcoin alone or ban it proper regulations or rules are needed to prevent misuse of the technology not outright bans.

[Yamane_Keto]

Coingecko has a more detailed list of countries; the number is higher, currently 18 countries where Bitcoin is banned or restricted. https://www.coingecko.com/learn/countries-ban-bitcoin
China's ban is considered the most comprehensive and began in 2013, as China has a good understanding of Bitcoin.
Some of banned countries you mentioned impose partial restrictions.

[Lucius]

Bitcoin banned or restricted? It is not clear to me why we are even talking about it if we know that Bitcoin is decentralized and does not need any permissions to exist and function. In all these countries, people use Bitcoin regardless of the official ban and no one can do anything about it. People who think we need a license or some kind of approval to use Bitcoin unfortunately don't realize how wrong they are.

~snip~
China's ban is considered the most comprehensive and began in 2013, as China has a good understanding of Bitcoin.

Isn't it a fact that the complete ban on trading and mining did not come until the middle of 2021? Besides, they understood what Bitcoin was even before 2013.

[Rashlyowl]

Do you think banning Bitcoin is a solution for money laundering and other allegations, or should countries move towards a regulation to keep up with the times?

Banning BTC is not a solution to the money laundering problem, because that illegal activity can still be carried out in other ways. Countries that ban BTC have strong reasons behind it, we cannot use our subjective conclusions to judge them. Our country's government used to ban BTC, but over time, the government removed the ban & made good regulations by treating BTC as an asset, not a currency (even though it shouldn't be like that, it's better than getting a full ban).

Muslim countries have a different approach than just monetary, because there is a religious factor in it, I think we have to respect that. Of the countries on that list, the one I can't respect is China, they seem to be the main enemy of BTC, banning crypto not just once, but four times.

[Jessie2121]

Aside from China, the rest are Muslim related countries, right and I thought that they view Bitcoin as Haram which means to put it lightly, something that is bad, so I don't think they'd be having a change of mind soon enough. It's not a matter of government loosing control except you'd say that the government are using this belief to somehow manipulate the minds of the citizens, else this is something they view as going against the rules so it has nothing to do with losing control. Although, I've read where the likes of Saudi Arabia gave a strict ban on cryptocurrencies, choosing to promote the country's digital coin instead so arguably, it could mean that some of these countries are more scared of the volatility of Bitcoin than losing control but I could be wrong.

[tbct_mt2]

Banning BTC is not a solution to the money laundering problem, because that illegal activity can still be carried out in other ways. Countries that ban BTC have strong reasons behind it, we cannot use our subjective conclusions to judge them.

Countries and governments don't ban cash, fiat currencies, gold, jewelries because of money laundering so why did they want to ban Bitcoin with a reason of money laundering?

The ban is not convincingly reasonable at all, at least I think like this because if it is an actual reason, governments must ban cash, fiat currencies, gold, jewelries that have longer history than Bitcoin and have been used for money laundering a long time before Bitcoin appearance.

Some other global maps on cryptocurrency legality.
https://coin.dance/poli/legality
https://newhedge.io/terminal/bitcoin/legality-map
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/geoeconomics-center/cryptoregulationtracker/

[YOSHIE]

Despite the global Bitcoin adoption in seven countries, Bitcoin still remains banned officially. These seven countries are China, Algeria, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Iraq, and Qatar.

This situation is exactly the same as Bitcoin that is happening in Indonesia right now, the country treats Bitcoin as illegal, but the government continues to develop and give official permits to crypto exchanges and all exchanges are controlled by the government and special authorities.

Rules are rules, but many elites and governments buy Bitcoin for investment and trading, I don't know what the government has in mind regarding Bitcoin, illegal but legal, that's what's happening now and that's a fact.

[PrivacyG]

and some countries like China accusing it for high energy consumption from mining. I believe all these allegations are just shit.

They are.  China kept turning the decision upside down over and over again.  Today it is instability, tomorrow it is the environment, yet who is speaking?  The country that produces the most pollution and the country where you wear a mask to go on about your day without your lungs taking decades out of your life.  How should we take them seriously?

They don't have proper knowledge about Bitcoin or how it could keep its role in the global economy.

They do.  They actually know VERY well what is going on and what a more developed and adopted Bitcoin could do.  That is why China is banning it.

Except for these seven countries, other countries seem to be moving forward to regulation to make it secure for their citizens. Do you think banning Bitcoin is a solution for money laundering and other allegations, or should countries move towards a regulation to keep up with the times?

It is never going to be the solution for money laundering or to protect the environment.  These two were already a problem before such large Bitcoin mining farms existed and way before the genesis of Bitcoin.  In their view, they are already keeping up with the times by putting the threat right away.

[TheUltraElite]

Its more of governments attempting to create control, eventually they have to accept that bitcoin is people's currency and they have little or in reality zero control over it. Hence one must always owm bitcoin but be careful with the local laws just to be safe. Run your own method to make fiat money, from jobs, businesses or investments but keep a sideline run on bitcoin.

The people who are living in these countries but keeping good volume of bitcoin with them will one day find better laws and be able to spend their coins seamlessly.

[Alpha Marine]

Money laundering is the excuse, but they just do not want their people to have that freedom. They need something constant and aligned with their government's ideology.
They also fear for the impact of Bitcoin adoption on their currency. This is mostly true for China. They know that even a small drop in price will affect the value of the currency. This is what they try to avoid. I remember that many more countries banned Bitcoin back then, but little by little they saw that they were making a mistake and they relaxed the rules against Bitcoin a bit. I believe more of these countries will relax their rules in time, including China. It's just a matter of time.

[Nathrixxx]

Honestly when we look about this country's that does not legalize for the use of Bitcoin, they are only affecting their citizens because of the denial to freedom when it comes to financial economy and how they handle their finances, government cannot allow this because they know that bitcoin network is a decentralized one and this will not give them more control over regulating individuals financial capabilities, this is also how we see it in today's economy and world, whereby the right to financial freedom has been denied by some leaders claiming they are there for their people.

[arzuo]

Bans don’t actually stop their use; they mainly scare and discourage newcomers.

In many cases, corrupt governments ban Bitcoin so that people don’t learn about it. The argument about money laundering may have some truth, but it is often exaggerated.
Sometimes, its operations and transactions require technology that many countries don’t have. For them, imposing a ban becomes the easiest option. There is also a lot of ignorance about it, and a large part of the population remains uneducated.

On the other hand, some governments are trying to bring crypto into a regulatory framework, which, in my opinion, is a positive initiative.

[Cryptomultiplier]

Despite the global Bitcoin adoption in seven countries, Bitcoin still remains banned officially. These seven countries are China, Algeria, Egypt, Bangladesh, Morocco, Iraq, and Qatar. During scrolling news, I found it on Cointelegraph Twitter that seven handful countries' Bitcoin remained banned. Here is the picture of the details.


"Image from Cointelegraph Twitter"

Most of these countries ban Bitcoin to prevent money laundering and some countries like China accusing it for high energy consumption from mining. I believe all these allegations are just shit. They don't have proper knowledge about Bitcoin or how it could keep its role in the global economy. Though countries are changing rules constantly, but I am not sure when they will make Bitcoin legal. There are a lot of ways for money laundering; still, people could do it through Bitcoin on the black market since it's decentralised. Means they just don't like Bitcoin because they can't control it.

Except for these seven countries, other countries seem to be moving forward to regulation to make it secure for their citizens. Do you think banning Bitcoin is a solution for money laundering and other allegations, or should countries move towards a regulation to keep up with the times?

Banning Bitcoin isn't the solution to money laundering because it is just a means to an end. Money launderers could use various methods to launder their funds including using AI tokens that are still a new thing in the world of innovation and technological development.
Countries that are afraid to accept and adopt Bitcoin are scared because they fear their fiat currency would lose value or that they wouldn't be able to control the citizens because of the decentralized nature of the Blockchain on which Bitcoin exist.  It's just ignorance if you ask me because from those countries who have accepted and adopted it, it gets taxed just like fiat and has other real world case uses that makes the economics of money movement be swift and direct.
Let's forget about the energy consumption, because majority of Bitcoin miners use their own sources of energy for a clean efficient and sustainable growth in that regard.

[suzanne5223]

Firstly, anyone that still believe in the honesty of the government stance towards an innovative technology especially when the technology is decentralized such person is a naive individual.
The Cryptovator, you ask if the government are afraid of loosing control. Why won't they be afraid when BTC is the only digital currency they targeted to shut down and create FUDs to make it worthless but it end up as failure. Why won't they be afraid of it?
For the countries that claimed to ban BTC to prevent money laundering it's just a lame excuse because 99% of all money laundering are executed through fiat currency not crypto where everything is on the blockchain.

[EFS]

The graphic isn't entirely accurate.

The use of Bitcoin has never been banned in Türkiye. However using Bitcoin for the purchase of goods and services was banned and that restriction is still in place. If you're a business, you can't accept payments in Bitcoin. There are no restrictions on Bitcoin trading. Centralized exchanges continue to operate and pay taxes on their profits.

When you look at the countries Bitcoin is banned, they're not developed countries. As a result of their government's decisions, the public is being affected.

[retreat]

Do you think banning Bitcoin is a solution for money laundering and other allegations, or should countries move towards a regulation to keep up with the times?

No. Banning Bitcoin won't stop money laundering in that country, as people can still use other methods to launder money. It's just that those countries are looking for excuses to make Bitcoin appear to be the root cause of this, so they prefer to ban it.

Many countries have chosen regulation over a complete Bitcoin ban. By using regulation, countries can at least establish clear rules for users and the industry, minimize the misuse of Bitcoin for illegal activities, and at the same time, generate tax revenue. This is more beneficial for the country.