How Many European Countries have Legalized Bitcoin?

45 European countries have legalized Bitcoin. 3 Countries are neutral on the legal status of Bitcoin. 6 Countries have provided no information on the legal status of Bitcoin. 1 country (Republic of Macedonia) has made bitcoin illegal. The table below shows what the status is within each European country.

Ont thing we for got to check in the original story was what is the Macedonian Denar worth in Bitcoin at the time of writing this edit it is worth 680101.34 Denar. So there is definitely still an exchange of Denar and BTC occurring. We do think Bitcoin Converter is one of the best sites out there for calculating BTC exchange rates.

Country Name	Bitcoin Legality	Classification
Albania	Neutral	Commodity
Andorra	Neutral	No Information
Armenia	No Information	No Information
Austria	Legal	Barter Good
Belarus	Legal	Commodity
Belgium	Legal	Currency
Bosnia and Herzegovina	No Information	No Information
Bulgaria	Legal	Currency
Croatia	Legal	Currency
Cyprus	Legal	Currency
Czech Republic	Legal	Currency
Denmark	Legal	Currency
Estonia	Legal	Currency
Finland	Legal	Currency
France	Legal	Commodity
Georgia	Legal	No Classification
Germany	Legal	Barter Good
Gibraltar	Legal	No Information
Greece	Legal	Currency
Greenland	Legal	Commodity
Guernsey	No Information	No Information
Vatican City	No Information	No Information
Hungary	Legal	Currency
Iceland	Legal	Currency
Ireland	Legal	Currency
Isle of Man	Legal	No Information
Italy	Legal	Currency
Jersey	Legal	Currency
Kosovo	Neutral	No Information
Latvia	Legal	Currency
Liechtenstein	Legal	Currency
Lithuania	Legal	Currency
Luxembourg	Legal	Currency
Malta	Legal	Currency
Monaco	Legal	Currency
Montenegro	No Information	No Information
Netherlands	Legal	Commodity
Poland	Legal	Property
Portugal	Legal	No Classification
Republic of Macedonia	Illegal	No Information
Republic of Moldova	No Information	No Information
Romania	Legal	Currency
Russian Federation	Legal	Currency
San Marino	Legal	Currency
Serbia	Legal	Commodity
Slovakia	Legal	Currency
Slovenia	Legal	Currency
Spain	Legal	Currency
Svalbard and Jan Mayen	Legal	Commodity
Sweden	Legal	Commodity
Switzerland	Legal	Currency
Turkey	Legal	Commodity
Ukraine	Legal	Currency
United Kingdom	Legal	Currency

The sea of green in the map and table above highlights that Bitcoin is legal in almost every country in Europe and is currently legal in all 28 member countries of the European Union. What does this mean for Bitcoin? It is here to stay. As of writing this article Bitcoin is on the verge of surpassing USD$8000.00 again.

Bitcoin has been here before. December 2017 it hit USD$19,783.06 then plummeted to under USD$6200.00 by February 2018. So yes, Bitcoin is volatile there is no denying that but what currency hasn’t been volatile at some point in its history? Bitcoin is still in its infancy, for example the USD has been around since 1785 and has had a volatile history. Eventually most currencies settle down and get into a groove and the market begins to trust it.

Judging by how many countries now accept that bitcoin can be exchanged for goods means that the magical trust factor is already starting to solidify around Bitcoin. This is different from Bitcoin being considered legal tender. Most EU member countries only accept the Euro as legal tender (except the UK). However, shops, pubs, petrol stations and more types of establishments are starting to accept Bitcoin as payment in exchange for goods and services and Bitcoin teller machines are sprouting faster than mushrooms after a summer shower.

Why is Bitcoin Illegal in Macedonia?

The Governor of the National Bank of Macedonia, Dimitar Bogov puts it like this:

“In Macedonia, the legal means for payment in cash and non-cash payment operations is the denar,”

This policy is futile. If a person has access to the internet then they have access to Bitcoin. It is suspected that hundreds if not thousands of Bitcoin transactions a week originate from Macedonia. So a subset of the Macedonia population is already circumventing these laws. If Macedonia wants to join the EU at any time in the future, then the denar will have to be dropped and at this point it is widely suspected that Bitcoin will no longer be outlawed. Some commentators that it may become legal long before that anyway.  You can compare this map image to the standard map of Europe.

What is Brexit?

Brexit is the conjunction of two words Britain and Exit. It was coined by The Economist magazine back in 2012. It describes the anticipated split of Britain from the EU.  Brexit is such a commonly used term that it has been added to the Oxford Dictionary.

Will the EU Survive Without the UK?

Yes, the EU can survive without the UK. The two questions that follow from this are. What kind of EU will remain and what kind of Britain will it be. While it is feasible that the split could cause the EU headaches and some initial teething problems. Eventually the EU will bounce back.

In the short term the statistical data will look bad for the EU. Experts believe that the EU will lose 16% of its GDP when the UK leaves the union. This is a straight out fact as that the is the proportion of GDP that the UK made up of the overall EU economy. The UK is the second biggest economy in the EU, under Germany but above France. So anyway you look at it that is a big statistical value to lose. When the UK leaves the EU economy for the first time since inception of the EU28 (the European Union with 28 member countries) will be smaller than the USA economy.

The flip side to this coin is that the UK since about 2007 has been a drag on the EU economy. Economic growth in the EU without the UK will actually be faster. The UK economy has been relatively stagnant since the (GFC) Global Financial Crisis. London’s financial markets were proven to be very vulnerable to the affects of the GFC and have not recovered well. The UK’s manufacturing and exports are predicted to grow slower than the EU in 2019 and 2020, so the overall effect on the EU economy of Brexit will be a positive one. Even if initially the numbers will look worse.

The European Union after Brexit will be a very different beast but probably a more robust, strong and progressive animal.

Will the UK Survive Without the EU?

Yes, the UK can survive without the EU. The UK economy is  the 5th largest in the world. This is despite all the pains the UK economy suffered over the GFC. The UK government is attempting  forge ahead with new trade pacts with countries like Australia but at the end of the day the EU is the UK’s biggest trading partner. this is not likely to change for decades to come. How will Brexit affect trade? The will be determined by the trade deal the Uk parliament can put in place with the EU. Currently they are not having much success in putting an kind of agreement on paper that is both acceptable to the UK parliament and the member countries of the EU. If this isn’t sorted then Initially trade will take a hit and possibly have a long term negative affect.

Conclusion

Brexit is a force for change in the world. Both the EU and the UK will initially feel some negative affects from the split but will these effects be long lasting? Only time will tell.

Top 40 European Economies 2018

Here we have a table of the top 40 European countries ranked by Gross Domestic Product. This doesn’t only include European Union Countries but all the countries that are considered part of the continent of Europe.

Some interesting takeaways from this years European GDP figures are the following:

• Romania went up one place to become the 16th largest economy in the European Union (EU) in 2017. In the full list of countries that are considered part of Europe it is at 19th place.
• Russia is still going backwards but that doesn’t seem to be affecting president Putin’s popularity. he won the election easily.
• The Czech Republic is still growing strong, it also surpassed Greece in 2017 but this was largely expected unlike Romania.
• Balkan countries like Croatia that have been hit rather hard in the last few years seem to be on their way to recovery.

2018 Rank	Country	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
1st	Germany	3,761.142	3,545.946	3,753.687	3,885.440	3,365.293	3,494.898	3,684.816	4,211.635
2nd	United Kingdom	2,611.108	2,655.458	2,721.489	2,945.394	2,858.482	2,649.893	2,624.529	2,936.286
3rd	France	2,865.304	2,682.900	2,809.390	2,843.673	2,420.163	2,488.284	2,583.560	2,925.096
4th	Italy	2,278.376	2,073.972	2,130.997	2,141.937	1,815.759	1,858.913	1,937.894	2,181.970
5th	Russia	2,031.768	2,170.145	2,230.624	2,030.973	1,326.016	1,267.754	1,527.469	1,719.900
6th	Spain	1,489.381	1,340.689	1,369.690	1,383.537	1,199.715	1,252.163	1,313.951	1,506.439
7th	Netherlands	894.576	829.406	866.951	881.033	750.696	769.930	825.745	945.327
8th	Switzerland	696.528	665.898	685.871	712.050	664.603	651.770	678.575	741.688
9th	Poland	524.104	496.687	526.031	546.644	474.893	473.501	524.886	614.190
10th	Sweden	563.110	543.881	579.526	570.137	492.618	512.748	538.575	600.771
11th	Belgium	528.721	499.129	524.970	534.672	454.687	465.248	494.733	562.229
12th	Austria	429.493	407.801	428.456	437.123	374.124	387.299	416.845	477.672
13th	Norway	498.157	509.705	522.349	500.244	389.482	366.873	396.457	443.252
14th	Ireland	237.990	222.089	232.150	246.438	238.031	254.596	333.994	385.142
15th	Denmark	341.498	322.277	335.878	340.806	294.951	301.784	324.484	369.760
16th	Finland	273.925	256.849	268.281	271.165	229.671	234.578	253.244	289.557
17th	Czech Republic	227.307	206.751	208.796	205.658	181.858	185.269	213.189	251.577
18th	Portugal	245.120	216.488	224.983	230.012	199.077	205.085	218.064	248.891
19th	Romania	186.113	172.041	191.598	199.950	177.315	181.944	211.315	245.590
20th	Greece	289.068	249.663	242.306	238.023	195.320	194.594	200.690	226.774
21st	Hungary	139.447	126.825	133.424	137.104	120.636	117.729	132.034	163.541
22nd	Ukraine	163.307	175.707	179.572	130.660	90.524	83.550	109.321	119.134
23rd	Slovakia	97.621	92.799	97.743	99.971	86.629	89.797	95.938	111.483
24th	Luxembourg	59.010	56.323	60.150	62.395	57.423	60.176	62.393	72.461
25th	Bulgaria	55.799	52.613	54.517	55.837	48.957	49.364	56.943	64.781
26th	Croatia	62.172	56.484	57.849	57.159	48.850	49.928	54.516	61.056
27th	Belarus	59.735	63.615	71.710	76.139	54.609	45.887	54.436	59.246
28th	Slovenia	51.299	46.288	48.005	49.506	42.768	43.791	48.868	56.933
29th	Lithuania	43.478	42.828	46.426	48.232	41.267	43.024	47.263	54.352
30th	Serbia	46.488	40.749	45.520	43.866	36.513	37.381	41.471	48.279
31st	Latvia	28.488	28.343	30.838	31.970	27.048	28.177	30.319	35.915
32nd	Estonia	22.824	22.673	24.888	25.953	22.704	23.476	25.973	30.821
33rd	Iceland	14.666	14.183	15.330	16.693	16.718	18.633	23.909	29.109
34th	Bosnia and Herzegovina	18.318	16.906	17.852	17.977	15.794	16.324	18.058	20.340
35th	Albania	12.891	12.345	12.916	13.262	11.543	12.269	13.181	15.289
36th	Malta	9.604	9.289	10.056	10.582	9.801	10.341	12.543	14.873
37th	Macedonia	10.659	9.751	10.774	11.342	9.922	10.424	11.366	13.085
38th	Moldova	7.018	7.283	7.985	7.944	6.414	6.084	8.085	9.202
39th	Montenegro	4.500	4.048	4.419	4.462	4.039	4.182	4.764	5.547
40th	San Marino	2.056	1.802	1.802	1.786	1.566	1.569	1.636	1.809