The market for cryptocurrencies is booming everywhere; traders are retiring from the business, and an increasing number of young individuals are becoming experts. Cryptocurrencies are predicted to overtake fiat money as the most widely used form of payment in the future. However, the Taliban leadership has outlawed dealing in cryptocurrencies and foreign exchange because they allege it involves fraud and illicit activity.
These restrictions were imposed in order to enforce the Afghanistan Central Bank’s ban on cryptocurrency trading, and the offenders are currently being held in custody. These prohibited exchanges are all located in the western province of Herat, where technology has advanced more recently.
Sayed Shah Sa’adat, head of the police’s counter-crime unit, told reporters that;
“The central bank banned crypto trading as the practice spawned issues and scams. All people involved in the local crypto businesses were arrested and their shops were closed”
After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, the financial situation of local people deteriorated as billions of dollars in foreign aid ceased and US sanctions froze its foreign assets. The effects of the Taliban takeover rose local interest in cryptocurrencies, but sanctions made it difficult for residents to buy digital assets. Afghanistan was showing more and more interest in the field of cryptocurrency and was on its way to being one of the top crypto-adopting nations. Afghanistan was in the top 20 crypto-adopting nations in an analysis by Chainalysis, but the “women education banning government” didn’t want their citizens to excel in any field and as expected banned.
Many advocates, including US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo, have said that the declining situation in Afghanistan can be helped by the
Adeyemo said at Consensus 2022 earlier this year, “Just imagine what a frictionless, global digital payments system with appropriate controls for illicit finance could do for people in places like Afghanistan—if relatives abroad could send remittances easily, or if NGOs could pay their staff halfway around the world with the click of a smartphone.”
The situation in Afghanistan is getting worse and worse due to extremist and foolish decisions like these by the Taliban government and their decision-making doesn’t seem to get better even after the results cause citizens to suffer.
“Afghanistan’s economic crisis has continued to fester, with little ability for citizens and businesses to get access to the financial resources they need. Many local banks are at risk of failure, humanitarian organizations are struggling to bring funds into the country to pay for their operations, and ordinary Afghans cannot access the cash needed to pay for basic needs.” Adeyemo added in his speech at Consensus.
But out of all, the US government should be as quiet as possible in terms of Afghanistan problems as they are the ones that started the whole thing let alone criticize the Taliban government for what they are doing.
