Banco Azteca has been banned from providing BTC services

Banco Azteca was shut down from providing BTC services after the Mexican government announced it was not interested in being the next BTC country as we can see more on our latest Bitcoin news today.

The CEO of Banco Azteca tweeted that his dream of offering BTC services in Mexico has been dashed by the country’s regulator because the government is not interested in being the next BTC country as well. Mexico Governor’s Minister of Finance and Public Lending Arturo Herrera Gutierrez shared an official statement from the country’s central bank and Treasury that virtual assets are not considered money under applicable law, applicable law, and banks are not authorized to operate in any way to work with cryptocurrencies:

“Domestic financial institutions are not allowed to conduct or offer public operations with virtual assets such as Bitcoin, Ether (sic), XRP and others in order to maintain a healthy distance between this institution and the financial system.”

The statement warns that those who attempt to offer crypto-related products are subject to legal sanctions under the Mexican Criminal Code. Regulators added that operations with stablecoins are prohibited even though the crypto-asset does not have the volatility typical of a traditional cryptocurrency. The additional announcement disrupted the intent of the crypto effort, but appears to be in response to reports that Banco Azteca is working on a new crypto-related service. Ricardo Salinas, CEO of Banco Azteca, is the third richest person in Mexico and a long-time BTC investor. He has made some statements regarding the adoption of cryptocurrency and its use cases as a store of value and claims to keep around 10% of his portfolio in BTC.

On the other hand, Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor assured that Bitcoin is better than gold and revealed that Banco Azteca is working to offer more solutions that allow customers to trade cryptocurrencies:

“#Bitcoin es una buena forma de multimediaar tu portafolio de inversión y creo que cualquier inversionista debería ponerse a sobre las cryptomonedas y su futuro.

En @BancoAzteca estamos trabajando para traerlas a nuestros clientes y seguir promoviendo la libertad pic.twitter.com/bZ51FB2vKw

– Ricardo Salinas Pliego (@RicardoBSalinas) June 27, 2021“

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