In the most current Bitcoin News, Zimbabwe’s Financial Intelligence Unit issued a binding mandate on June 16, 2026 needing all virtual asset service providers to register below Statutory Instrument 99 of 2026, the nation’s first devoted crypto regulatory framework, effective instantly, with criminal liability for non-compliance.
The framework formalizes what has been an 8-year grey market constructed mostly on hyperinflation-driven demand for dollar-denominated options to a succession of collapsing local currencies.
The regulatory event is easy. The question it reopens is not: if Zimbabwe can construct the institutional scaffolding to supervise crypto, is there a coherent case for the state itself to keep a Bitcoin reserve as a monetary anchor? The answer cuts both ways, and the arithmetic deserves a serious look.
Bitcoin News: SI 99 of 2026: What the FIU Mandate Actually Covers
The legal chain is worth anchoring exactly. The Finance Act No. 7 of 2025, passed in December 2025, amended Section 2 of Zimbabwe’s Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act to incorporate VASPs into the statutory definition of a financial institution.
Acting under those expanded powers, the Zimbabwean Minister of Finance gazetted the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime (Virtual Asset Service Providers Registration) Regulations on June 10, 2026, codified as Statutory Instrument 99, and the FIU issued its public enforcement mandate 6 days later.
The scope is broad and technology-neutral. Any entity exchanging cryptocurrencies for fiat, offering custody services, or facilitating crypto-related financial transactions ought to register. Notably, decentralization isn’t an exemption: if an operator can adjust smart contracts, route funds, or set transaction fees, the FIU considers them a VASP.
Registration contains a US$500 preliminary fee and US$400 annual renewals, needs a regionally integrated entity, director background checks, KYC implementation, transaction tracking, and compliance with the FATF Travel Rule.
The FIU was into specific about what registration does not provide. “Registration with the FIU for AML/CFT functions does not, in itself, constitute authorization to carry on business in Zimbabwe,” the public notice stated .
VASPs still need separate operational approvals from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe or the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe, depending on their business version. This 2-layer structure– crypto regulation for AML tracking on one track, industrial licensing on another, is standard FATF structure, and Zimbabwe is explicitly aligning itself with those international standards.
The historical context makes the policy shift sharper. In 2018, the RBZ issued Circular No. 2/2018 ordering all banks to quit servicing crypto exchanges and go out existing relationships within 60 days.
Local exchange Golix challenged the ban in court and acquired a provisional High Court order lifting it particularly towards Golix, but wider regulatory uncertainty endured for years.
SI 99 is successfully the formal end of that ambiguity, a supervised incorporated model replacing blanket exclusion, driven by the recognition that hyperinflation and currency instability had already pushed citizens into crypto irrespective of official policy.
