South Africa’s Reserve Bank to tone down crypto usage in the country
South Africa’s Reserve Bank (SARB) came out with an announcement saying that the usage of cryptocurrencies in the country has started to get out of hand. More specifically, the bank mentioned that individuals were using cryptocurrencies or digital currencies for that matter to transfer huge amounts of money outside of the country.
As everyone who has had experience in transferring funds abroad knows, there is a set limit on the amount of money that can be transferred without a declaration. However, South African citizens were able to avoid this restriction by simply using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
For South Africa, the barrier lays at 1 million ZAR ($68,000). Anything above this amount will require a declaration in the bank as well as a visit to the local tax agency. However, this is just for an individual transfer. Any venture capital or investment transfer made by a company has a higher limit of 10 million ZAR ($680,000).
Needless to say, all of these barriers were disregarded by South African crypto users who have started to gain momentum in the country.
South Africa in the lead for crypto
It’s not even surprising to see South Africans utilizing cryptocurrencies as a method to dodge government regulations. In fact, it could be said that Bitcoin was designed for exactly that purpose.
Furthermore, it’s not likely to see such activities pretty much anywhere else on the African continent, considering that South Africans are the #1 in the world in terms of crypto possession.
The SARB was fully aware of this but still wanted to maintain a crypto-friendly environment. It was just a matter of time before the system was exploited by some investors.
The most likely outcome out of this will be that South Africa will introduce new crypto exchanges to the country where locals will be forced to register and have their trading activities monitored 24/7.
