Zimbabwe’s High Court Restores Cryptocurrency Trading
Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court has lifted the restriction on cryptocurrency trading.
Cryptocurrency trading will continue in Zimbabwe as the nation’s Supreme Court has issued a provisional order lifting the restriction on digital currency. This reverses a prior directive by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), it was accounted for.
Supreme Court Justice Alfas Chitakunye said in his request:
“The ban issued by respondents through a letter dated May 15, 2018, against the applicant, directing it to cease its operations, shut down its virtual currency exchange business and ordering the closure of its bank accounts with its bankers, be and is hereby suspended pending the return day.”
Chitakunye’s most recent decision topples the May 12 order of the national bank guiding every single financial intuition in Zimbabwe to stop transacting in cryptocurrencies. On May 15, digital currency giant Bitfinance (Private) Limited, which was working in the nation as Goliz and got a letter from RBZ requesting it to stop operations promptly and to close every account with all the bankers.
In an announcement about the boycott, RBZ Governor Dr. John Mangudya cautioned the general public against trading in virtual currencies. He stated:
“Any person who buys sells, or otherwise transacts in cryptocurrencies, whether online or otherwise, does so at their own risk and will have no recourse to the Reserve Bank or to any regulatory authority in the country.
“The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has not authorized or licensed any person or entity or exchange for the issuance, sale, purchase, exchange or investment in any virtual currencies/coins/tokens in Zimbabwe. Exchanges such as Bitfinance (Private) Limited (Golix) and Styx24 are not licensed or regulated by the Reserve Bank.”
In any case, Golix, through its attorneys, Mutandiro Chitsanga and Chitima Legal Practitioners, appealed to the ban before the High Court, describing the order as uncalled for and unreasonable. They challenged that the RBZ order was not in accordance with the nation’s Constitution and administrative law.
Equity Mangudya immediately followed up on the appeal to and issued a transitory lifting of the boycott, making ready for the proceeded with the activity of computerized money trading and organizations in the nation.
Some industry insiders in Zimbabwe earlier communicated certainty that the national bank’s order would not influence the settlement between exchanges with peer to peer trading proceeding to work together.
A source was quoted as saying:
“We can sit over a cup of coffee and transfer cryptos among ourselves. The entire logic of crypto is peer-to peer-transaction without trusted third parties.”
