THE Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM) warned individuals not to engage in buying, selling, transferring, or saving of cryptocurrency assets, according to its notification dated 16 November.
CBM announced on 3 May 2019 through state-run newspapers that digital currencies, including cryptocurrency, are not allowed to be traded personally or virtually. CBM declared digital currencies, including cryptocurrency, illegal currencies. CBM has not granted permits to any financial institutions to deal with digital currencies, according to its notification released on 15 May 2020. The governments of many countries, such as China, India, Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Nepal, Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Angola, and Colombia, stated that digital currency like cryptocurrency is not legal tender. Though they are not regulated in many countries as legal currency, some are qualified as digital assets.
China bans crypto crackdown and pledges wider E-CNY use as a digital representation of the Chinese. CBM is also researching to create a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Some governments prohibit the use of cryptocurrencies. Nevertheless, their popularity among people is accumulating and saving and trading crypto is growing as our world is changing rapidly.
Some people expect profit from high price volatility in crypto trading. Lack of bank investment made crypto assets attractive for illegal activities such as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, human trafficking, online scams and money laundering (AML/CFT) as they can evade taxes.
The UK and the US brought charges of money laundering and involvement in online scams against Cambodian businessman Mr Chen Zhi and sanctions assets from his Prince Group, according to the CBM, citing a BBC Burmese statement on 16 October 2025.
Additionally, the US government seized approximately US$14 billion worth of digital currency Bitcoins for digital currency fraud linked to phishing scams with forced labour camps, making it the largest Bitcoin seizure and largest financial crackdown in history and causing the Bitcoin market to drop by about 10 per cent.
The historic crypto crackdown proved that governments can track down and control crypto assets. Consequently, that makes criminals more cautious with the use of cryptocurrencies and likely reduces the use of Bitcoin.
The unregulated crypto market poses a significant risk to investors to experience financial losses due to rapid price swings, weak regulation and high vulnerability to hacking and online security breaches. Thus, CBM reiterates its warnings to the public not to conduct illegal activities like buying, selling, transferring, and holding crypto assets. CBM encourages the public to use legitimate transactions only through authorized banks. — NN/KK
