In Brief:
- Zimbabwe is planning to consider Bitcoin as a legal currency in a country with regulations.
- Before making a decision, the Government wants to ensure the security of users and understand the impact on the economy.
As the cryptocurrency market cap is rising, many countries are making up their minds to announce some prominent cryptocurrencies as a legal tender for their people. Now Zimbabwe is planning to consider Bitcoin as a legal payment method along with the conventional currency.
According to the local news agency, the Zimbabwe Government can announce Bitcoin as a legal tender in the country to meet its demand and harness technology.
Ret. Brigadier Colonel Charles Wekwete, who is the permanent secretary and head of the office of the president and cabinet’s e-government technology unit, revealed that exchange discussion for Bitcoin is underway. It seems like the government wants to measure impacts on the economy before taking any decision.
While discussing this topic, Wekwete counted the possible disadvantages of decentralized finance such as unregistered cross-border transfers, externalization of money, money laundering, and ill-gotten cash flow into subsequent illicit or unlawful actions.
“Governments are still trying to understand and properly trying to create policies on how to deal with it. In our case, initially we were trying to understand their implication because they are a fundamental departure from previously known financial instruments and there are a lot of fears about cross border movement of funds, money laundering, externalization of funds and illicit flow of funds to fund illicit issues,” he said.
He added that authorities can set regulations to ensure fund security and to protect consumers from any incident. For this, the government is willingly considering all the advice from experts, before making any policy.
The move is intended to follow the digital economy framework as a part of the National Development Strategy 1. The Government wants to connect with businesses to grow a digital economy.
After El Salvador’s announcement to accept Bitcoin as a legal tender, many countries are working and planning to launch Bitcoin as a legal currency or a payment method among other payment modes.
