Crypto ban across the globe has doubled in three years, says report

Crypto ban across the globe has doubled in three years, says report

Even though the year 2021 proved to be a rewarding tear for the cryptocurrency industry where its market performance is concerned, still, the number of jurisdictions that have banned cryptocurrencies has more than doubled since 2018.

The latest report prepared by the Library of Congress (LOC) has recently detailed a list of nine jurisdictions that have notedly applied an absolute ban on cryptocurrencies and an additional 42 that have imposed an implicit ban. The number is up from eight and 15, respectively, back in 2018 when the report had first been published.

The LOC is a research library serving particularly the United States Senate and the national library for the country.

As per the terminology of the LOC report, an absolute ban is understood as any transactions with or holding cryptocurrency being “a criminal act”, whereas an implicit ban refers to the prohibition of cryptocurrency banks, exchanges, and other financial institutions ranging from dealing in cryptocurrencies or offering services to businesses/individuals/owners dealing in crypto.

The nine global jurisdictions that have brought forwards an absolute ban on cryptocurrencies include Iraq, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Bangladesh, and China, with China’s crypto ban and subsequent crackdown receiving the utmost attention in 2021.

The dramatic increase in jurisdictions that have banned or regulated cryptocurrency over the past three years has not shown any signs of slowing down as several governments are in the process of currently reviewing their options.

 Besides the 51 jurisdictions having a crypto ban, 103 have applied for anti-money laundering and combatting the funding of terrorism (AML/CFT) laws, in a three-fold increase from the 33 jurisdictions with similar laws in place since 2018.

A financial watchdog in Sweden, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, had called for a ban on Proof of Work (PoW) mining in November 2021 due to the power demands plus the environmental costs of keeping these networks running. This had been met with harsh criticism from Melanion Capital of Paris, which had regarded the claims against mining as “completely misinformed.”

The Swedish EU neighbour, Estonia, is also set on implementing AML/CFT rules in February 2022. These new rules are bein expected to change the definition of what a virtual asset service provider (VASP) is for applying an implicit ban on decentralized finance (DeFi) and Bitcoin (BTC).

The Indian government had also created a scare when lawmakers in the country had considered a crypto ban last year in 2021. The outcome, although, had not been an outright ban, but a push towards regulating cryptocurrencies as crypto assets, with the Indian Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) overseeing the regulation of local crypto exchanges.