The government of India intends to introduce legislation banning cryptocurrency, reports Reuters. The law would impose fines on anyone who trades, mines or even has a crypto-currency. The government has a comfortable majority in parliament, which gives the proposal a good chance of becoming law.
This will make India one of the most cryptocurrency-hostile jurisdictions in the world. China, for example, has imposed a number of restrictions on the trading and mining of cryptocurrencies, but it has not banned the ownership of cryptocurrencies.
The legal status of cryptocurrency has been the subject of controversy in India for the past few years. In 2018, India’s central bank banned Indian banks from providing financial services to cryptocurrency exchanges, which hampered growth in the country’s cryptocurrency economy.
Last year, the Supreme Court of India overturned the ban, causing an increase in Indian interest in cryptocurrencies. One cryptocurrency exchange, Bitbns, told Reuters that user registrations have increased thirty-fold in the past year.
But the Supreme Court’s ruling leaves the door open for legislation on the subject. In January, rumors began to spread that the government was considering a ban.
According to Reuters, the legislation has six months to liquidate their positions before the ban takes effect.
Officials are apparently worried that ordinary Indian consumers could make bad cryptocurrency bets and lose their savings as a result. Bitcoin’s price rose above $ 60,000 for the first time over the weekend – double its value at the beginning of the year. But there have been periods in the past in which bitcoin has lost more than 80 percent of its value within a few months.