The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working on legal amendments to ban peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC).
On July 2, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology release The official announcement of the new legislation banning personal P2P cryptocurrency transactions was posted on Telegram.
Citing the high rate of cybercrime in Belarus, authorities said local prosecutors had cracked down on 27 citizens offering “illegal cryptocurrency trading services” since January 2023. Their total illicit earnings were close to 22 million Belarusian rubles ($8.7 million).
The ministry argued that encrypted P2P services are “popular with scammers who cash out and convert stolen funds and transfer funds to organizers or participants in criminal schemes.”
In order to eliminate such illegal activities, the ministry will ban individuals from P2P and only allow them to trade cryptocurrencies through exchanges registered in the Belarusian High Technology Park (HTP). The regulator said:
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working on legislative innovations to ban cryptocurrency transactions between individuals. To improve transparency and control, citizens can only conduct such financial transactions through HTP exchanges.”
The agency also noted that it plans to implement practices similar to foreign currency exchange procedures, which would make it “impossible to withdraw funds obtained from illegal activities.”
“In this case, the activities of information technology fraudsters in Belarus will become unprofitable,” the ministry wrote.
In response to the Belarus news, many cryptocurrency enthusiasts questioned the government’s ability to ban P2P cryptocurrency transactions. “Good Luck, Execute It,” One Crypto Observer explain on twitter.
related: Banning cryptocurrencies ‘may not be effective in the long run’ – IMF
P2P exchanges were the original idea of Bitcoin, as written by anonymous Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto in his white paper. Bitcoin advocates such as Jan3 CEO Samson Mow say banning P2P would be difficult, if not impossible. The executive told Cointelegraph in June that although China will ban all cryptocurrency transactions by users in 2021, many Chinese users still use P2P channels to exchange cryptocurrencies.
The latest news from Belarus is somewhat contradictory to the legislation that Belarus has passed in recent years. In 2022, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko signed a decree confirming that the country officially supports the free circulation of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
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