According to The Paper, a spokesperson for the Press Department of the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs said on July 2 that “the Ministry of Internal Affairs is working on legislative innovations to prohibit cryptocurrency exchanges between individuals. In order to increase transaction transparency and strengthen government supervision, traders will only be able to conduct (cryptocurrency) transactions through the Belarusian High-Tech Park (HTP) exchange.”
The Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs explained that the decision is aimed at combating cybercrime. In the first half of 2023 alone, the staff of the Belarusian Cybercrime Combating Department have cracked down on 27 illegal service transactions that exploited loopholes in cryptocurrency regulation.