How bureaucrats can only do their worse while trying "to do it better" with Bitcoin?
Here's how on the example of Colombia:
In its "Comunicado Bitcoin" dated back to April 2014, the Banco de la Republica declared that the new form of digitalized, cryptographically protected money is not a legal tender in Colombia. Among other things Banco stated: "The only monetary and account unit in Colombia is the peso (bills and coins) issued by the Banco de la Republica. Bitcoin is not a currency in Colombia ... ."
Despite its relatively unobtrusive and, even, banal content this Communicado, for some mystical reason, had evoked a long-lasting confusion in local as well as world's mass-medias concerning the legality of crypto-currencies in this South American country. The state of general bafflement about crypto in Colombia was exacerbated even further, when the Superintendencia de Sociedades - a relatively obscure department of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism - had stepped in this hotted dispute and delivered its own "clarification" of the Bitcoin "issue", dated at September 2017.
In their short but totally muddled two-pagers, which was, rather unhelpfully, named "Illigal results of the business activity conducted under the multi-level scheme for the sale and placement of virtual currency", local bureaucrats managed to utterly confuse themselves by desperately trying to draw the direct line between the subject of rising Bitcoin world-wide popularity and the proliferation of local "investment clubs", tagged as "ponzi schemes" in this memorandum, in Bogota.
As a result of those ill-informed efforts of local watchdogs to warn the public against non-existing threats, the issue of Bitcoin legality in Colombia has became even more fazed. Currently, after several additional more-or-less bedazzled statements have been made on crypto-themes by both Banco and Superintendencia, we, nonetheless, can conclude that Bitcoin is still legal in Colombia. However, this subject fully resides in a "gray" zone of local law and, taking into account totally non-friendly stance of Colombian financial regulators towards crypto (what is, of course, not so surprising), digital money issuance and usage in this country might be outlawed virtually overnight.
Business Notes for Startups Founders:
political climate: moderately friendly ;
economic climate: not friendly ;
regions to focus: local, Latin America;
industries to focus: electronics, E-commerce, entertainment, FinTech, tourism, luxury;
major limitations: slowing economy, over dependence on oil, security situation, large income disparity between different social group, low level of income for majority of population, high taxes;
opportunities: favorable geographic position, developed electronics industry, existence of very wealthy class of citizens, relatively high Internet penetration rate (growing at 5%).
Cryptocurrencies and ICOs (outlook): not regulated (negative).
The author: Svyatoslav (Svet) Sedov
Angel investor and founder of The First International Incubator for Silicon Valley Companies (FirstInternational.In) in the Bay Area, CA, USA.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SvjatoslavSedof