Fight crime, by banning cryptocurrency exchanges between private individuals. This is the position of the Belarusian government, which has just announced a future legislative framework. In practice, however, the ban could prove difficult to implement.
Cryptocurrency exchanges between individuals soon to be banned in Belarus?
The Ministry of the Interior announced the move in a Telegram post published on Sunday. The ban on cryptocurrency exchanges between private individuals would enable better control of illegal flowsaccording to the government:
« Such services are used by crooks to cash in and convert stolen funds, transfer money to organizations or participants, and so on. in criminal activities.«
Hence two proposals: on the one hand, a ban on peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency trading. On the other, Belarusian citizens will not be able to obtain cryptocurrencies only through selected exchange platforms. That is, those that are part of the « Belarus High Tech Park », the Belarusian Silicon Valley, where several crypto companies are located.
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Reinforce exit controls
In addition to this, Belarus plans to introduce tighter controls when trading cryptocurrencies against fiat currencies, including the local Belarusian ruble (BYN). The aim is to monitor exchanges as if they were foreign currencies :
« The introduction of a practice similar to the foreign currency exchange procedure will make it impossible to withdraw money obtained by criminal means. Under such conditions, it will simply become unprofitable for IT fraudsters to operate in Belarus.«
In reality, of course, it’s more complicated than that. It’s very complex to ban cryptocurrency exchanges between individuals, as these were historically created to resist censorship. In addition, the use of platforms outside Belarus, which are more decentralized, is also difficult to contain. China experienced this when it banned cryptocurrency transactions, with a black market that exploded.
It should also be remembered that illegal transactions accounted for just 0.15% of cryptocurrency volume in 2022according to a Chainalysis report. This raises the question of whether it is necessary to ban an entire section of new finance technologies, in order to contain what is basically only a fraction of the ecosystem.
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Source : Ministry of the Interior via Telegram
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As a journalist at Cryptoast, I fell into the cryptocurrency world a few years ago. I’m passionate about the innovative technologies stemming from blockchain, and I love digging up the juiciest news to share with you.
Marine Debelloir
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