Cryptocurrency Regulation in MENA: From Prohibition to Conditional Legalization

Abstract While there has been an upsurge in the use of cryptocurrency worldwide, several states in the Middle East and North Africa initially attempted—implicitly or explicitly—to ban it. However, the regional markets for crypto continued to grow, and the number of users increased despite the illegality of trading or mining. In response, states began around 2020 to lift their prohibitions and regulate crypto. This article argues that this policy shift was driven not by virtual currency's promise as a means of decentralizing monetary systems but instead by the governments’ needs to reassert control. The study maps and investigates the evolution of cryptocurrency regulation by 14 MENA governments before and after 2020. The analysis finds that these states, in both periods, used the same language of national security, economic stability, and Sharia—first to justify their bans and then to allow cryptocurrency but only within their systems of control.