The topic of crypto and the Shekel is quite a very interesting topic. If you want to buy crypto in Israel using Shekels, you can use different providers. One of the major ones is called BitsOfGold. Established in January 2013 by Youval Rouach, the company initially struggled to get the proper recognition from the Israeli finance system. Back in 2022, BitsOfGold went to court against Bank Leumi, for trading Crypto not according to the law. As of 2024, BitsOfGold is proudly showing the Bank Leumi logo on their site as things have slowly stablilized.
Crypto and the Shekel: Is Crypto legal in Israel?
The Israeli economy knew many ups and downs. Crypto is no different. In the beginning where Crypto was barely adopted, the legistlation was quite harsh towards Crypto. Some Israelis couldn’t even exchange their crypto coins into their bank accounts, despite reporting everything legally. The banks just didn’t want to take part in it. As of 2024, the banks haven’t fully adopted crypto yet.
However, as of now, as long as you’re using a properly regulated and licensed broker, you can easily exchange your Crypto to Shekels, and deopsit these Shekels into your bank account. The onus is on the broker to verify your source of funds and conduct any AML and other checks whenever you exchange your crypto to Shekels.
Conclusion: Can you safely trade Crypto in Israel?
The short answer is yes. You can safely exchange Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano and many other crypto currencies into Shekels and vice versa. In this post we provided only one single example of a well known licensed and regulated crypto broker for that purpose. However you can find many others in Israel. As long as the broker you use is properly licensed and regulated then you should have no problems whatsoever exchanging your crypto into Shekels and vice versa.