#IndiaWantsCrypto was trending on Twitter on Sunday, shortly after the latest budget session of the Parliament. The Government of India is planning to pass the bill to ban all the private cryptocurrency in the country. On Friday, the Lok Shabha Bulletin released an statement that the introduction of the bill will create the framework to launch the official digital currency of by the Reserve Bank of India.
The bill would ban several private cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin, which has been widely popular among Indians. This isn’t the first time the country is setting things in motion to ban the cryptocurrency. Back in 2018, Arun Jaitley, the finance minister announced the discountinuation of the use of digital currencies such as Bitcoin. Even the Reserve Bank of India had banned the transcations done through the use of cryptocurrencies.
However, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the people can continue use Bitcoin and other virtual currencies for transactions. People can even buy and sell Bitcoins through several online digital currency brokrages. The authorities are planning to introduce this bill so that the large number of Indian investors aren’t exposed into any kind of online risks. Cryptocurrencies are currently on insane rise in recent months.
The Government of India belives that the digital currency is being used as the medium for money laundering since it doesn’t possess any KYC regulations. Howver, some of the exchanges have started KYC norms, but there are still several ways to buy and sell cryptocurrencies without any proper KYC norms. These cryptocurrencies are maintained in open-spurce ledger and aren’t regulated by any central banks.
The cryptocurrency industry in the country has started worrying about the passing of this new bill. Shivam Thakral, the CEO of BuyUcoin asked the government to ask the opinion of the stakeholders before deciding on banning the cryptocurrencies. He fears that the prohibition will affect the livlihood of those invovled in the digital currency industry. BuyUcoin, along with WazirX, and CoinSwitch are the leading digital currency exchange platform in the country.
