Ghana

As of December 12, 2025, Ghana's cryptocurrency market is in an advanced state of transition, classified as a 'Gray-Zone' due to the existence of a pending legislative framework that has not yet been fully enacted or operationalized. The Bank of Ghana (BoG) has moved away from its previous hands-off warnings to a proactive engagement strategy. This shift culminated in a mandatory registration exercise for all Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs), which concluded on August 15, 2025. However, the BoG clarified in public notices that this registration was for monitoring purposes and did not confer a license or regulatory approval, leaving VASPs in a provisional state without full legal certainty.

The primary legislative vehicle for regulation, the 'Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill,' was finalized and submitted to Parliament around October 2025. BoG Governor Johnson Asiama publicly stated a target to have the regulations fully in place by December 2025. The bill is designed to empower the BoG and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue actual licenses, enforce anti-money laundering (AML) standards, and supervise the sector. Until this bill is passed and the first licenses are issued, the sector remains technically unregulated but tolerated under close watch.

Operational restrictions remain a key characteristic of this gray zone. Previous circulars (specifically from 2018 and 2022) that prohibit banks and specialized deposit-taking institutions from facilitating cryptocurrency transactions have not been formally rescinded. While the new draft guidelines propose allowing banks to service *licensed* VASPs, this permission is contingent on the enactment of the VASP Bill. Consequently, retail traders often rely on peer-to-peer (P2P) markets or mobile money integrations that may operate in a legal grey area regarding banking compliance.

The regulatory approach is bifurcated: the BoG focuses on financial stability, payments, and AML/CFT, while the SEC Ghana oversees assets deemed to be securities. The 'Draft Guidelines on Digital Assets' released in August 2024 provided the blueprint for this cooperation. Despite the lack of a finalized law, the aggressive timeline and the completion of the registration exercise indicate that Ghana is on the verge of becoming 'Allowed-Regulated,' likely in early 2026 if the December 2025 target for parliamentary approval is missed.