Regulators in India Are Still at War with Crypto

The Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar is going against the ideas set forth on crypto by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In a recent interview, he claimed that should all crypto-based laws set forth by the country’s present regulators be obeyed by investors and traders alike, all digital currency trading activity should be fine.

What Will India Decide?

This completely contradicts a recent statement offered by the RBI, which claimed that all digital currencies should be banned and that all those who engage in crypto trades should face penalties, financial or otherwise. Speaking at an event in the city of Bengaluru, Chandrasekhar said the following:

There is nothing today that outlaws crypto as long as you follow the legal process.

Right now, one of the big problems with India and crypto is that the former can’t seem to make up its mind about the latter. This is something the nation has been traversing for several years. Should crypto be banned? Should it all be allowed? Will India be a crypto haven, or will it follow in Beijing’s footsteps? Nobody seems to know where the road is going.

India has said in the past that it is open to regulating crypto rather than banning it. Legislators have since taken to working on a new set of crypto laws that would oversee the space and all activity within it, but nothing concrete has been produced as of this writing. It seems India is an expert when it comes to talking. When it comes to doing, that’s a whole different ball game.

In any case, Chandrasekhar’s words completely go against the negative sentiment recently shared by the RBI. Not long ago, the agency’s governor Shaktikanta Das explained:

Cryptocurrency should be completely banned from the country and it can just be called ‘gambling.’ RBI’s position is very clear. All cryptos should be banned. However, the technology of blockchain needs to be supported as it has so many other applications.

A Lot of Back-and-Forth Action

India has had an extremely up-and-down relationship with digital currencies. In 2018, it was falsely reported by several news outlets that India was on the verge of banning crypto, though in fact, the banks of the nation were simply prohibited from working with crypto and blockchain firms. This meant that no company delving in digital assets could obtain a standard bank account or gain access to any traditional monetary tools.

Two years later, the nation’s Supreme Court decided that this was unconstitutional and reversed the ban. From there, trading activity increased, and it looked like India was on the verge of becoming one of the world’s biggest crypto havens, but since then, the nation has gone back and forth regarding whether it wants to ban crypto altogether or whether it will regulate the space.

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