Cairo - The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said that it has no intention of passing a law or issuing legislation to allow the trade of cryptocurrencies in Egypt. An official at the CBE said in a statement that the bitcoin—a famous kind of cryptocurrency—is not officially recognised in financial and banking transactions and that the sale of bitcoins in exchange for Euros or US dollars would be considered a crime. Chairperson of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA), Reda Abdel Moaty, said in a statement last week that the authority has not issued any licenses for digital currency exchanges in Egypt. He also added that the authority has not received any requests to establish an exchange of digital currency. On the other hand, the co-founder of Bitcoin, Rami Khalil, said that the company plans to launch bitcoins in Egypt by the end of August, specifically on the last day. "We will at least go into alpha testing at the specified time for launching if we are not fully operational," Khalil said, as reported on Bitcoin's official website. Khalil said that Bitcoin is awaiting the Egyptian government to decide on issuing the proper regulations required in order to legalise the situation of Bitcoin in Egypt. "Without any laws, bitcoin is not legal money in Egypt," Khalil added. He noted that cryptocurrencies will be a reality soon, whether the Egyptian government agrees to be part of it or not. Bitcoin is a worldwide kind of digital assets and digital payment systems made to secure transactions, allowing anonymous peer-to-peer transactions between individual users, without the need to resort to banks or central banks within countries. In February 2015, more than 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment. Currently, the volume of the bitcoin market is estimated at $70bn. A bitcoin is worth $4,286.03.
