Breaking: Zimbabwe Government Denies Reports About Legalizing Bitcoin (BTC)

The speculations around Zimbabwe being the second country after El Salvador to legalize Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal tender has come to an end. The Zimbabwean government denied all such reports claiming the country would legalize crypto as a legal tender. The government made it clear that the Zimbabwe dollar will remain the sole legal tender in the country.

Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa after the parliament session on Tuesday talked to the press and said,

“Government would like to assure the nation that it is not considering introducing another currency in the economy as reported in some sections of the media. Our local currency is the Zimbabwe dollar, and not cryptocurrency. Like most countries in the world, the Government of Zimbabwe, through its Financial Technology Group, is studying Central Banking Digital Currency as opposed to cryptocurrencies, bitcoins or any form of derivatives,”

The speculation around legalizing crypto assets started with the country’s finance minister suggesting that they can’t ignore the nascent market anymore. The fact that El Salvador President also hinted at the legalization made many believe that Zimbabwe will follow on the lead of El Salvador to mitigate the growing financial issues in the country.

Will Zimbabwe Regulate Crypto?

Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube in an earlier interview mentioned that cryptocurrencies can be regulated as an asset class if not as a legal tender. He mentioned that the state treasury saw nothing wrong with exploring different use cases of crypto assets in the current financial market.

“The intention is not to have it as a transaction currency but as an investment asset class, and even then once we have made a decision we will ring-fence this in the offshore financial centre so that it does not circulate locally.”

El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption took many by surprise and mainstream financial pundits called it a big mistake, however, the small Central American nation is already reaping the benefits of making BTC a legal tender as they are building schools and hospitals from the profit made from BTC holdings.