On 7 July 2016 Birmingham Law School’s Dr Maureen Mapp convened a round-table discussion of cryptocurrency regulation in Uganda.
The roundtable was the first sustained analysis of the implications of regulating cryptocurrencies in Uganda for the wider meanings of currency, and the complex legal and policy issues of how it can - and should - be regulated.
Complexities included the legality of cryptocurrencies, protecting the private rights and interests of users and consumers while encouraging innovation, policy issues, and ways in which existing regulatory mechanisms could be adopted to accommodate these currencies.
The participants developed guiding principles for the development of policy and a regulatory framework on crypto currencies. Dr Mapp’s discussion was on ways in which a cultural transformation of virtual currency regulation could take place drawing on an African relational approach to property including currency.
The event was sponsored by Birmingham Law School and the College of Arts and Law at the University of Birmingham, and the United Nations African Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (UNAFRI).