New details have emerged suggesting that the Indian government will continue with the ban on cryptocurrency, contrary to what the crypto community believes. India’s finance minister said in her latest interview regarding cryptocurrency legislation that there will be a window for experimentation with cryptocurrency, blockchain and fintech.
Reports from India banning Cryptocurrency
The Indian crypto community is closely monitoring whether the government will ban cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin. A cabinet note regarding cryptocurrency legislation is being finalized and will be submitted to the cabinet shortly.
The latest information regarding the Indian cryptocurrency ban comes from Reuters who reported on Sunday night: “India will propose a law that bans cryptocurrencies, and that anyone in the country trades or even owns such digital assets.” The publication named a senior government official who claims to have direct knowledge of the plan. He said the bill would punish the possession, issuance, mining, trading and transfer of crypto-assets.
According to the official:
The bill will give holders of cryptocurrencies up to six months to liquidate, after which fines will be levied.
In addition, officials are confident that the bill will be enacted into law, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has a comfortable majority in parliament, the publication added.
Crypto community believes there will be no ban
Many people on social media do not believe that India will pass the ban on cryptocurrency, which indicates that the information provided by Reuters is outdated. They believe Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has indicated in her recent interviews that cryptocurrency will not be banned.
The Minister of Finance talked about legislation on bitcoin and cryptocurrency in an interview on India Today over the weekend. She was asked if India is on its way to the area where it is inevitable that the government should realize that cryptocurrencies are here to stay.
The finance minister reiterated that a ‘cabinet note’ on cryptocurrency is ‘being prepared’ and ‘almost complete’. She confirmed that it will be taken to the cabinet soon.
Noting that the Supreme Court has commented on cryptocurrency and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will appeal the official digital rupee, the finance minister confirmed:
For our part, we are very clear that we are not turning off all options. We allow people a certain amount of window so that experiments in blockchain, bitcoin, or whatever you want to call it, the cryptocurrency experiments and fintech that depend on such an experiment will have that window available.
However, she stressed that specific rules on cryptocurrencies will appear in the cabinet note, which will be ready soon.
Earlier this month, Bitcoin.com News reported that the finance minister said: ‘There will be a very calibrated stance … We are not closing our minds. We are definitely looking at the ways in which experiments in the digital world and cryptocurrency and so on can happen. ”
Her statements gave the Indian crypto community hope that India would regulate cryptocurrencies instead of imposing a total ban.
However, according to a recent Reuters report, the senior official said the plan is to ban private crypto-assets while promoting blockchain technology and fintech. He said:
We do not have a problem with technology. There is no harm in using the technology.
He clarified that the moves of the government would be ‘calibrated’ to the extent of the fines on those who did not liquidate crypto-assets within the legal period of the law.
In the cryptocurrency bill published in 2019, the inter-ministerial committee responsible for drafting the bill recommends a prison of up to ten years for people who exploit, generate, hold, sell, transfer, sell, issue cryptocurrencies or trade ‘, conveyed the publication and added that the official did not wish to discuss the details in this area.
Meanwhile, Indian crypto traders are enjoying the crypto boom as the price of bitcoin has peaked several times in recent months. Leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the country reported record high trading volumes and numbers of new users. “The money is increasing fast every month and you do not want to sit on the sidelines,” a crypto trader named Sumnesh Salodkar told Reuters. “Although people are panicking about the possible ban, greed is the choice.”
Do you think India will still ban bitcoin? Let us know in the comments below.
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