Afghanistan Closes Down 16 Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Arrests Operators
Law enforcement in Afghanistan has shut down over a dozen crypto exchanges in Herat, detaining the people who were running them. The offensive comes after the introduction of a ban on online foreign exchange that the Taliban seem to have applied to coin trading as well. Taliban Government Goes After Crypto Trading in Afghanistan Citing Scamming as Motive Afghan security forces have closed down a number of crypto exchanges in the western Herat province in the past week, the English-language Ariana News portal reported on Tuesday. At least 16 platforms trading digital currencies....
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The Afghan central bank declared forex trading un-Islamic and illegal earlier this year, and issued a warning about continuing activities a month later; now arrests have been made. Police have closed down at least 16 cryptocurrency exchanges in the Herat province of western Afghanistan in the last week, according to a report in Ariana News, an independent news outlet in that country. The report quotes a local police official as saying arrests had been made during the closures. The closures were carried out in response to a ban on crypto trading that had been in place for about three....
The cryptocurrency caught hype in Afghanistan last year when the state’s economy got into trouble amidst the Taliban taking over Afghanistan in May 2021. After the Taliban came into power, the U.S. imposed sanctions that made buying crypto difficult, with western authorities ceasing billions of the assets of the country. But after things changed and […]
The sun beat down at a blistering 120 degrees in the Helmand desert. The air was dry and tense as the two bitcoin entrepreneurs, Adam Locklin and yours truly, shook hands and made a deal in bitcoin. A Partagas robusto cigar traded hands, I sent Adam 0.1 BTC, and so concluded what we believe to be Afghanistan's first recorded bitcoin transaction. This simple trade comes with a few lessons if bitcoin is really going to work in Afghanistan and other remote parts of the developing world: Most countries need an exchange. Adam and I were talking to a few local Afghans the other day, and despite....
A pioneering female CEO has been promoting Bitcoin in Afghanistan since 2013 and sees it needed in her home country now more than ever.
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and its decision to seize the country’s assets demonstrates the importance of bitcoin as a sovereign asset.