June 2021 brought one of the biggest breakthroughs for cryptocurrencies as the Central American country, El Salvador, became the first to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. The United States advanced toward crypto regulation as FinCEN appointed Michele Korver as its first-ever Chief Digital Currency Advisor and listed crypto in its AML/CFT “national priorities”. Elsewhere, China continued its crackdown on crypto as its central bank urged financial institutions to sever any payment channels for users identified to be trading in crypto, and India seemed to inch closer toward banning all private cryptocurrencies, making way for its planned Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) launch. Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, fell deeper into regulatory turmoil as various countries, including the UK, took adverse action for various regulatory compliance failures.
This month, we examine regulations in one of the fastest-growing emerging markets for cryptocurrency, Africa…specifically, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.
