How a Crypto Workaround Is Opening a New Channel for Diaspora Giving to Nepal

As Nepal's Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund swells with contributions for Bhotekoshi flood victims, the Kathmandu Post's business desk reports a novel financial workaround: a US-based conversion arrangement now allows cryptocurrency donations from diaspora communities worldwide — including the UK — to legally reach Nepal's relief fund, despite Nepal's domestic ban on cryptocurrency trading and use.

Under the arrangement, donors anywhere in the world send crypto assets that are converted into US dollars via Cross River Bank, a US financial technology company, before entering Nepal as rupees — sidestepping the legal barriers that scuttled earlier crypto-led relief campaigns. Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle confirmed the facility directly to the Post: "We have opened a facility to deposit digital currencies in Cross River Bank and bring the money into Nepal as dollars." The initiative brings together the blockchain network Polygon, Cross River Bank, and Engage Nepal, an organisation led by former US ambassador to Nepal Scott DeLisi.

For the UK's Non-Resident Nepali community — many of whom work in finance, tech and crypto-adjacent sectors in London — this creates a formal channel that did not previously exist, at a moment when UK-based organisations including NRNA UK, Tamu Dhin UK and IME London are already funnelling six- and seven-figure rupee sums into the same relief fund through conventional bank transfers and remittance corridors. It also raises a longer-term policy question relevant to NRNA UK's advocacy priorities: whether Nepal's blanket cryptocurrency ban is becoming increasingly difficult to enforce or justify as diaspora wealth — including UK-held crypto assets — seeks legal routes home, whether for disaster relief, property investment or family remittances.

The broader context is stark. Nepal's National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority reported 1,356 bodies recovered and roughly 4,994 people still unaccounted for as of Monday evening, underscoring the scale of the relief operation this financial innovation is attempting to support.