Afghanistan Shuts Down 16 Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Arrests Made

The Taliban government goes after cryptocurrency trading in Afghanistan citing scamming as the motivator for the attack on 16 cryptocurrency exchanges as reported by English-language Ariana News on Tuesday. Which is a news publication that posts articles on everything going on with Afghanistan.

“Da Afghanistan’s Bank (central bank) stated in a letter that digital currency trading has caused lots of problems and is scamming people, therefore they should be closed. We acted and arrested all the exchangers involved in the business and closed their shops,” said Sayed Shah Sa’adat, head of the counter-crime unit of Herat police.

Herat Money Exchangers’ Union also said that people were being scammed through cryptocurrencies.

“Digital currency accounts are outside the country and are purchased from the companies. Our people are not familiar with it, so it is better not to use it. This currency is new in the market and has high fluctuation [rates],” said Ghulam Mohammad Suhrabi, head of Herat Money Exchangers’ Union.

Two local residents of Herat had this to say about this cryptocurrency exchange crackdown:

“Digital currency is a new phenomenon which is not used in Afghanistan, therefore the process should be monitored by the government so that there will be no scamming and people can make better investments,” said Shahram, a resident in Herat.

“The government should monitor and prevent digital currency activities, otherwise assets leave Afghanistan. People also suffer losses because syndicates are involved and rates fluctuate daily,” said Mawla Alizada, a Herat resident.

It’s a very complicated discussion, because we believe cryptocurrency has the power to change the world for the better and we want everyone in the world to use it. However with a new and fast spreading technology that the average citizen does not fully understand there is so much room for a variety of scams such as, pump & dump, pyramid scheme, “double your crypto” scam or even just an outright hack of a users wallet or the exchange they are using goes bust.

Something that really stuck with us, was the “assets leave Afghanistan” that one really hit home.