Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Thursday there is no problem with cryptocurrencies in India if all laws are followed, in a remark that contradicted the Reserve Bank of India’s view of advising investors to steer clear of crypto to keep away.
India has tried to find a regulation for cryptocurrencieswith a deputy central bank governor even calling for a ban, but the government has not yet been able to legislate.
In the last budget, the government set a tax framework for cryptocurrencies, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi said so World Economic Forum last year that a collective global effort was needed to address digital currency issues.
Junior IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said at an event in the southern city of Bengaluru, “Today there is nothing that bans crypto as long as you follow the legal steps.”
In February 2022, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor T. Rabi Sankar said that cryptocurrencies are related Ponzi schemes or worse, and banning them was the most sensible option for India.
RBI Governor Shakkanta Das also said in February that cryptocurrencies are not even missing the underlying value of a tulip.
Last month, that pushed for banning cryptocurrencies, calling crypto trading “a 100 percent speculative activity.” The RBI governor warned that the next financial crisis could be triggered by private cryptocurrencies if such speculative instruments are allowed to grow. “Cryptocurrencies … have enormous inherent risks from macroeconomic and financial stability (perspective) and we have pointed them out,” Das said.
Illegal use of cryptocurrencies allegedly reached a record US$20.1 billion (nearly Rs.1,63,217 crore) last year. Transactions related to sanctioned companies increased more than 100,000 times in 2022, accounting for 44 percent of last year’s illicit activity, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
