Bangladesh

Crypto Licensing

Bangladesh maintains a blanket prohibition on virtual currency and virtual asset transactions, standing on Bangladesh Bank's FE Circular No. 24 of 15 September 2022. That circular states plainly that transactions made in, from, or to entities engaged in exchange, transfer or trading of virtual assets or virtual currencies are not permitted by Bangladesh Bank, on the basis that virtual currencies are not recognised as currency under Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 s.2(b)(i). This is a Confirmed, Tier-1-sourced position and the primary framework governing crypto activity in the country: Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947 s.23(1), the Money Laundering Prevention Act 2012, and the Anti-Terrorism Act 2009 sit behind Bangladesh Bank's enforcement authority.

The development this cycle is not a change to that prohibition but its explicit reaffirmation. The National Blockchain Policy of Bangladesh 2026 excludes cryptocurrency and virtual-currency trading, exchange operation, and legal-tender status from its own scope. Read against the standing FE Circular, this is a confirmation that jurisdiction over crypto activity remains exclusively with Bangladesh Bank rather than being liberalised or reassigned to a new blockchain-specific regulator. This is a Probable-confidence claim, sourced from The Business Standard's opinion coverage of the Policy, and it is a new instrument this cycle even though its substantive effect is continuity rather than change.

No statutory token-classification taxonomy exists in Bangladesh, and no regulator guidance addresses on-chain activity such as staking, DeFi participation, mining or validator operation specifically. Both of these adjacent gaps sit consistently with the broader FX-based prohibition: in the absence of any lawful crypto-trading activity, Bangladesh has had limited occasion to build out a classification or on-chain-activity rulebook, and none is evidenced this cycle.

Outlook

The 2026 National Blockchain Policy's framing — building sovereign permissioned blockchain infrastructure while explicitly carving crypto trading out of its own scope — suggests the government's institutional interest lies in state-controlled applications rather than any move toward licensing private virtual-asset activity. Nothing in the current record suggests Bangladesh Bank is preparing to relax the FE Circular No. 24 prohibition. The item to watch is whether the Blockchain Policy is followed by implementing rules that further specify the boundary between permitted sovereign blockchain infrastructure and the prohibited private-crypto space it explicitly excludes.

Stablecoin Regime

Bangladesh has no enacted stablecoin-specific regulatory framework. The National Blockchain Policy 2026 is the only instrument to address stablecoins at all, and it does so by grouping them together with broader private crypto assets rather than establishing any distinct authorisation, reserve, or redemption regime for them. The Business Standard's opinion coverage of the Policy states that this approach currently prioritises risk framing over the opportunity such instruments might represent, which is a Uncertain-confidence characterisation given that it comes from opinion commentary on the Policy rather than a directly retrieved policy-text provision addressing stablecoins by name.

Because stablecoins are not distinguished from the general private-crypto category, the practical regulatory treatment of a stablecoin transaction in Bangladesh is identical to the treatment of any other virtual-asset transaction under Bangladesh Bank's FE Circular No. 24 of 2022: not permitted, on the basis that virtual currencies are not recognised as currency under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act 1947. There is no separate reserve-backing requirement, no distinct issuer-licensing track, and no differentiated consumer-disclosure regime for stablecoins as such — because there is no distinct regulatory category for them to sit within.

Outlook

The Business Standard commentary frames the current grouping of stablecoins with broader crypto assets as a starting point rather than a permanent settlement, arguing the Policy's foundation for sovereign permissioned infrastructure could in principle be extended to a distinct stablecoin treatment. Nothing in this cycle's evidence base confirms that any such extension is underway. The item to watch is whether a future iteration of blockchain policy, or a dedicated Bangladesh Bank circular, carves stablecoins out of the general private-crypto prohibition into a distinct authorisation track; there is no signal in the current record that this is imminent.

Cross-Border Transfer

Bangladesh Bank's Foreign Exchange Policy Department (FEPD) circular dated 31 July 2025 is the operative Tier-1 primary source confirming that the retention of export proceeds abroad in any form, including the purchase of physical or virtual assets and the maintenance of accounts denominated in any currency including cryptocurrencies, constitutes a contravention of Section 5(1)(e)(i) of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947. Such contravention is cognisable under Section 23(1) of the same Act, citing SRO No. 59-LAW/2021 of 8 March 2021 as the underlying statutory instrument. This confirms, with Confirmed-tier confidence from a primary regulator document, that Bangladesh's cross-border crypto prohibition reaches beyond domestic transactions to cover the specific scenario of exporters attempting to hold foreign receivables in crypto form rather than repatriating them through authorised banking channels. There is no licence, registration or exemption route by which an exporter could lawfully retain export proceeds in crypto form; the prohibition is categorical.

A second, lower-confidence development this cycle concerns the interaction between crypto-settled cross-border flows and Bangladesh's newly reported predicate-offence expansion under the Gambling Prevention Act, 2026. Two independent Tier-3 legal-commentary sources report that the Act treats the transfer, concealment or conversion of gambling proceeds through cryptocurrencies or digital assets as a predicate offence under the Money Laundering Prevention Act, 2012. Where such gambling proceeds cross Bangladesh's borders via crypto rails, this adds a money-laundering consequence layered on top of the pre-existing foreign-exchange-control prohibition on the underlying crypto transaction itself. This characterisation is assessed as probable rather than confirmed, since no primary gazette text of the Gambling Prevention Act has been retrieved to verify the precise wording of the relevant provision.

Taken together, the FEPD circular and the Gambling Prevention Act commentary indicate that Bangladesh addresses cross-border crypto transfer through at least two distinct legal bases: the long-standing foreign-exchange-control prohibition applicable to all crypto transactions regardless of purpose, and a newly reported money-laundering predicate-offence basis specific to gambling-proceeds flows. Both operate without any licensing or registration pathway, consistent with the broader jurisdiction-wide prohibition on crypto activity under Bangladeshi law.

Outlook

No indication exists that Bangladesh Bank intends to create any exemption or licensing pathway for cross-border crypto transfer; the FEPD circular reaffirms the categorical prohibition rather than signalling any loosening. Confirmation of the Gambling Prevention Act's predicate-offence wording against primary gazette text remains an open item that would, if confirmed, solidify the money-laundering dimension of crypto-settled cross-border gambling proceeds as a durable feature of the legal landscape rather than a probable one.