N’DJAMENA – Central Africa’s Regional Banking Regulator sent out a reminder about Friday’s ban on cryptocurrency usage, just weeks after Central African Republic made Bitcoin legal tender.

According to the Banking Commission of Central Africa, (COBAC), which oversees banking in six Central African CEMAC zones, the prohibition is meant to maintain financial stability.

As cryptocurrencies suffered huge losses following Friday’s collapse of TerraUSD (a so-called stablecoin), the announcement was made.

On April 27, the Central African Republic’s president announced that Bitcoin had become legal tender. This makes it the second world country to make this happen after El Salvador.

Crypto experts and analysts said that at the time they were confused by the decision in one of the world’s most impoverished countries, where there is little internet access, widespread conflict, and unreliable electricity.

Although the government provided little information about its reasoning, it could not be reached immediately for comment.

According to a statement released Friday, the banking commission had a special meeting May 6, in order to assess the potential impact of cryptocurrency in the area.

COBAC said that in an effort to ensure financial stability for clients and to protect client deposits, it had removed certain restrictions regarding the use crypto-assets within CEMAC.

It stated that these include holding cryptocurrencies, their exchange, conversion, or settlement transactions related to cryptocurrency, and the prohibition on using them as a way of evaluating assets, liabilities or other matters.

It stated that COBAC had taken a series of steps to establish a system to identify and report on cryptocurrency transactions.