Report contents
APAC · Developing
Bangladesh
Crypto Livability Index 2025·data to 31 Dec 2025
Scoreboard
Five pillars, then the 22 sub-pillars scored 0 to 4. Empty sub-scores are held out of the total, not zeroed.
The number behind the rank
| Raw capability score | 21 / 84 |
| P2P liquidity bonus (tie-breaker) | +2 |
| Inflation 9.7% · unbanked 57% · remittances 6.1% GDP · capital controls 0.84 · sanctions 0 | CNI 0.369 |
| Need multiplier | ×1.053 |
| Livability score | 0.263 |
Raw 21/84 = 0.250 capability. Crypto-Necessity Index 0.37, from five components: inflation 9.7% (three-year average 2023 to 2025), unbanked 57% of adults, remittances 6.1% of GDP, capital-control intensity 0.84 (KAOPEN 2023), sanctions exposure 0. Need multiplier ×1.05. Livability score 0.263, rank #72 of 79.
Three findings
A perfect zero on the rulebook, and a top-15 adoption rank anyway
Bangladesh scores 0/20 across every regulation sub-pillar, with crypto banned under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1947 and the Money Laundering Prevention Act of 2012, trading punishable by up to 12 years. Yet it ranks 13th of 151 countries on the 2025 global adoption index, up from 17th, with an estimated 3.1 million wallet holders. The law forbids the activity; the behaviour keeps climbing.
The ban targets operators, not ordinary holders, which is why P2P survives
The central bank has clarified that merely owning crypto is not automatically a crime, and enforcement has overwhelmingly hit domestic gambling and high-volume traders, leaving a deep informal USDT market on bKash and Nagad with the highest taka merchant count on its dominant P2P venue. The gap between a banking-rail ban and live grassroots trading is the entire lived reality.
Crypto rides a record remittance corridor the state is trying to wall off
Remittances hit a record 30 billion dollars in fiscal 2024 to 2025, and even a conservative 1% to 2% crypto share implies 300 to 600 million dollars in flows. In September 2025 the central bank threatened to revoke licences of any entity facilitating crypto remittances, and the governor stated crypto has no place in the remittance ecosystem.
In one line
"Bangladesh has banned crypto since 2017 and climbed into the global top fifteen for adoption regardless. When dollars are scarce and millions work abroad, a prohibition on paper is not the same as a prohibition in practice."
Watch in 2026
Trajectory 0/4, actively tightening. The central bank issued Warning Notice BB/CC/2025/17 in September 2025 threatening to revoke licences of remittance facilitators, the governor publicly excluded crypto from the remittance ecosystem in October 2025, and the Cyber Security Ordinance 2025 criminalised adjacent activity alongside a nationwide enforcement crackdown. The direction is unambiguously hostile and intensifying.