Pakistan bans financial institutions from crypto and ICO trading
In a public statement, the Pakistani government has banned banks, payment processors, and other financial institutions from facilitating purchase and sale of crypto currencies and ICOs. The law effectively makes it illegal for anyone to transact using digital money internationally. The government mentions the lack of strong privacy, volatility, speculation, and plethora of Ponzi scheme ICOs as key reasons behind the ban:
A) High price volatility as investments tied to Virtual Currencies are highly unstable and are primarily based on speculations;
B) Failure/closure of Virtual Currency exchanges/businesses due to any reason including action by law enforcement agencies; and
C) Hacking/security compromises of crypto currency exchanges and wallet businesses as a number of instances have been recorded around the world where huge amount of funds have been lost due to the exchange/wallet operations being hacked/compromised.
Earlier this year India presented a similar tough stance on digital assets with a total crackdown.
