Cue another headache for exchanges and cryptocurrency facilitators around the world…
Pakistan is the latest country to try to ban cryptocurrencies outright.
While Helen Partz reports at Cointelegraph today that the central bank in Pakistan would like to create a blanket cryptocurrency ban, that’s not how things are currently working out.
Instead, Partz suggests, the bank’s appeal will be sent to the ministries of finance and law for bureaucratic review.
It seems officials in Pakistan would like to crack down on coins, tokens and exchanges.
What about other countries?
On one hand, many first-world countries have dropped plans to ban cryptocurrency and are instead working on comprehensive regulation.
On the other hand, there are a significant number of countries that have tried to ban cryptocurrency outright.
A world map of positions on cryptocurrency shows belts of hostility and attempted crypto bans across South America, some parts of southern and northern Africa, and a nexus point in southern Asia around China, which has been aggressive about cryptocurrency crackdowns.
“China dislikes the energy consumption and greenhouse gases associated with crypto-currency mining,” reported Anne Stevenson-Yang yesterday at Forbes. “Regulators also think, with good reason, that cryptocurrency is used for money laundering, capital flight, and illegal transactions, so why support it?”
Chinese leaders do, however, want o create a national Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) system, which, as Stevenson-Yang points out, is really different than normal crypto.
“The DCEP is a digital form of China’s fiat money, subject to the same PBOC issuance and design regulations that govern physical currency,” she writes. “The goal of the DCEP is to provide high transparency into transactions for the government, in other words, to let Chinese regulators know everything about people who are making purchases and sales. Currency intended to enhance the panopticon is pretty much the exact opposite of the goal of Bitcoin.”
Keep an eye on national efforts and how they change the contours of global defi.