Bitcoins in Nepal – what you should know! With Bitcoin Nepal FAQs

Update on Bitcoin Legality in Nepal - 8 October 2017

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) – the central and regulatory bank of Nepal – has finally announced on August 13th, 2017 that the operation of Bitcoins and any other cryptocurrency is illegal in country. The notice followed the illegal activities and networking business done in cash and in person with Gravity Coins in the country.Even though Bitcoins was never legal (unclear about it’s usage) in Nepal, there were multiple companies like Bitsewa Bitcoin Exchange operating in the country – any many of them have now been shut down. Here is the notice from Nepal Police regarding illegal use of Bitcoins in Nepal that focus on grounds stating Bitcoins are not recognize currency in Nepal and anti-money laundry perspective (Nepal Rastra Bank Act 2058).
The contents in this article might be obsolete with this Bitcoin legality in Nepal established recently. Please, read or browse on your own discretion. Team TechSansar never promote illegal activities including this one.

We received the above message on our Facebook page recently, so without any delay we rushed to find official (?) information about Bitcoins and legality of its operation in Nepal. For those who are new to Bitcoins, they are digital cryto-currency usually mined from a power computing resources using Internet. Read our cover:  What is Bitcoin – Time for Peer-to-Peer Virtual Currency?

Bitcoins is a buzz in Nepali press these days however Bitcoins existed since 2009 even in Nepal. Here are facts and knowledge-based QnA on Bitcoins in Nepal legality, availability and possibility. Consider this open-sourced like Bitcoins themselves. (List of news articles published by Nepali news media on Bitcoins are listed and linked at the end of this article.)

When did Bitcoins started in Nepal?

Since things are difficult to predict when they exist globally via Internet, Bitcoins first started on January of 2009, accordingly it should have started in the country. We started mining bitcoins on 2011.

How to make Bitcoins?

Well, they call it mining. Bitcoins can be mined originally with requirement of having a huge and always on-computing resource, a faster internetworking connectivity and the ability to wait till some bitcoins are generated. Mining requires computing transactions over secure network and keep everyone in the bitcoin system synchronized. So, you can just imagine how much is the resource required. Details on specific Bitcoin FAQs can be found at bitcoin community website from The Bitcoin Foundation here.

BiTMinter is a quick and easy bitcoin mining pool to mint bitcoins and make money with your computer, solely using browser (try it!)

Can I make money with Bitcoins?

Bitcoins are currency that carry monetary value. You should, however, never expect to get rich with Bitcoins or any emerging technologies as such. The value of one BTC have been fluctuating from a thousand dollars to 500 in a couple of months unpredictably. However, it is a better idea to make some Bitcoins – even for fun. You can get start with some Bitcoins from services we list here.

Bitcoin – Nepalese Rupee (BTC-NPR) Exchange Rates

Bitcoin’s basic unit is 10ˉ⁸ called Satoshi, the values of 1BTC or BTX fluctuates every minute. As of writing this article, the current coin value of 1 XBT or 1 BTC = $678 = NPR 67,088. (Satoshi is the basic unit of Bitcoin, 1 Satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC, alternatively 1 NPR = 0.0000149056 BTC)

Can you name popular Bitcoin miners from Nepal?

Well, Bitcoins are anonymous and their miners too. However, one can track bitcoin wallet transactions like total balance, total sent and total received transactions bitcoins.One can track who use or mine Bitcoins on the social media discussions, hashtag analysis and thru direct relation. Some of the facts on this are present here.

Localbitcoins.com shows local Bitcoin traders in Kathmandu.

Bitcoin Traders or Bitcoin Entertainers in Nepal

Harilo: The popular e-commerce site from Nepal, lets you pay the items you order using Bitcoins or even purchase Bitcoins not only the bitcoin miners (as stated in their FAQs and Blog.) Harilo is one important place to spend your hard mined bitcoins in Nepal and to buy bitcoins if you’re really onto it!

Bitcoin Nepal Private Limited: Registered Bitcoin service provder in Nepal. Registered by Nir Limbu (nir kedem), Bitcoin Nepal Private Limited operates bitcoin.com.np – a .np ccLD domain allowed by Mercantile to be registered (Mercantile’s Terms & Conditions for registering a domain name can be found here). The website enlist the latest bitcoin trade exchange rates along with other popular digital currencies like Litecoin, Novacoin, Namecoin, Peercoin and Feathercoin. However, Bitcoin Nepal pvt ltd doesn’t do direct exchange of BTC into NPR and vice versa.

Nepali Restaurants accepting Bitcoins: Not really easy finding that but anyone can lookup for such information. Few restaurants in Thamel and New Baneshwor are said to accept bitcoins for the bills. We have had this experience as well. However, none of these Nepali restaurants state of accepting Bitcoins in their menus or websites so we couldn’t list here.

Hulas Remittance: When asked Hulas Remittance whether they exchange Bitcoins, they said “bidesh bata aayeko paisa matra exchange garinchha”. So, we have no official confirmation despite many websites in Nepal claim that they have exchanged Bitcoins via Hulas. What we found in reality is that Hulas remit’s website have a Bitcoin to Nepalese Rupee converter widget which shows upon in Google searches (is that all, are there something in them?)

After all, are Bitcoins legal in Nepal?

The official website of the country’s central bank Nepal Rastra Bank has not stated any official statements regarding legalities of Bitcoins in Nepal. However, newspapers have quoted the bank that they have not permitted anybody to use Bitcoins in Nepal for any legal business and monetary transactions. What does that mean by actually?

If you are in Nepal and have some Bitcoins with you, then you can definitely use them for your digital transactions as long as you are not interfering with NRB’s policy. But, operating Bitcoins on daily purposes say on the businesses listed above might be against NRB’s terms.

On the one hand, regulating virtual digital currencies is not an easy task – for which many countries haven’t intervened, on the other hand how do we expect our central bank to peep onto our personal wallets? (Or should we let it be as it is, and just ignore what our newspapers publish?) Let’s discuss this on the comment section.

List of free Bitcoin sites to start with

There are many websites that provide free Bitcoins either to start you on the digital currency arena or play around with. Many websites give you free bitcoins, litecoins or feathercoins (popular digital currencies) upon sign up, others give coins for visiting their websites but are just good to start with Bitcoins, enthusiast should rather consider mining. Whatever their purpose be, ensure you are not at spammer’s hand.

• BitVisitor pays users for visiting sponsored sites listed on their website.
• qoinpro gives free bitcoins, litecoins, feathercoins and other digital coins everyday automatically, just sign up and confirm for the magical automation.
• FreeBitco.in – our favorite one- is Roll and Win site to try luck every hour, bitcoins can be won in range of 0.00000261 to 0.261 BTC.
• FaucetBTC – free bitcoins every 30 minutes, payment sent to CoinBox.me.
• CoinAd – free bitcoins from a PTC (Paid-to-Click) website.
• DailyFreeBitcoin – faucet that provides 300 Satoshis every hour.
• vnbitcoin – website that gives free bitcoin for first timer Bitcoin user to get started with 0.00003 BTC to every visitor.

We list here different kinds of crypto currencies or digital coins available in the market or the web:

List of Digital Crypto-Currencies

These almost 30 may not be the total digital currencies in practice now, as varieties of them seem increasing every other day. So, which digital currency are you going to own?

Also read these Bitcoins in Nepal related topics:

• Bitcoins to Nepalese Rupees BTC to NPR Conversion
• Buy sell Bitcoins in Kathmandu Nepal
• What is Bitcoins – Virtual peer 2 peer digital currency that you can own

बिट्क्वाइन / विट्क्वाइन / Bitcoins related news articles published by Nepali media:

• के हो विटक्वाइन ? | अर्थ/वाणिज्य | कान्तिपुर
• भारतमा बिट्क्वाइनको नियामक स्पष्टताको खोजी | अभियान राष्ट्रिय दैनिक
• व्यापार विस्तारमा बिट्क्वाइन सहयोगी हुन सक्छ | अभियान राष्ट्रिय दैनिक
• विद्युतीय मुद्राको कारोबार बढ्दो |  भारतलगायत विभिन्न मुलुकमा कारोबारमा प्रतिबन्ध, नेपालमा कारोबार गरेको पाइए कारबाही गर्ने राष्ट्र बैंकको चेतावनी | कान्तिपुर
• Is bitcoin currency of future or asset bubble? The Himalayan Times

Finally, if you have decided to start with Bitcoins or own some already you can donate us or request for starting your own wallet, our wallet address  is 1GM1wRjhRKkC19zkehMVkRyZiyzBFVEsFs let us know.
Bitcoin basics pullquote from THT news as linked above.