When early crypto regulations, the first government attempts to define and control digital currencies. Also known as cryptocurrency law, they were messy, slow, and often ignored by users—but they still changed everything. Back in the 2010s, no one knew if Bitcoin was money, a commodity, or just code. The U.S. called it property. China banned exchanges. Russia waffled. And everywhere, people kept using it anyway—because it worked better than banks for remittances, privacy, and bypassing sanctions.
Those early rules didn’t stop crypto. They just pushed it into corners. Iran used Bitcoin to trade oil after sanctions hit. Vietnam’s millions ignored the ban on stablecoins and kept trading on peer-to-peer apps. Mexico’s FinTech Law let individuals use crypto but blocked banks from touching it—so startups died trying to comply. And in places like Georgia, exchanges like BitBegin popped up to serve local users who couldn’t use global platforms. These weren’t accidents. They were responses to crypto compliance, the cost and complexity of following legal rules in a decentralized world that didn’t have clear rules.
Meanwhile, the lack of clear rules created the perfect breeding ground for crypto scams, fake exchanges and tokens that looked real but had no infrastructure or audits. Platforms like Tranquil Finance, C2CX, and Lucent didn’t just disappear—they never existed. Scammers counted on confusion. They knew if regulators couldn’t agree on what crypto was, users wouldn’t know what to trust. That’s why today’s posts dive deep into real exchanges like JetSwap and BloctoSwap, and expose fakes like NODEMETA and FRED. These aren’t just reviews. They’re survival guides shaped by the fallout of early regulation.
What you’ll find below isn’t just a list of articles. It’s a map of how early crypto regulations forced innovation, created loopholes, and turned everyday users into reluctant experts. From real estate tokenization to DeFi lending, every project today carries the DNA of those early legal battles. Some rules failed. Others worked too well. And the ones that didn’t? They left behind a trail of scams, hacks, and lessons you can’t afford to ignore.
Bolivia became the first country to ban Bitcoin in 2014, outlawing all crypto use to protect its national currency. The ban failed to stop adoption, leading to a thriving underground market. In 2024, Bolivia reversed course, allowing trading under strict regulation while still banning crypto payments.