Is Zimbabwe softening its hard line on crypto?

Zimbabwe’s finance minister recently extolled the potential for decentralised finance to lower remittance costs.

Harare, Zimbabwe – When Mthuli Ncube was appointed Zimbabwe’s finance minister in September 2018, the country’s crypto enthusiasts hoped he would walk back some of the restrictions imposed on cryptocurrency trading.

The truly optimistic hoped he would become a champion of digital currencies.

“When he joined government, he was bullish about cryptocurrencies,” William Chui, one of the founders of Golix, a now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange in Harare, told Al Jazeera.