Skip to main content

Here's a timeline of what's happened in India, from banning to regulating cryptocurrency, and what's next.

By

The government's stance on cryptocurrencies has shifted over the previous several years, from banning all private cryptocurrencies in 2016 to planning to regulate them as assets. Here's a look at the digital asset's history and where it might be going in the future.


In India, cryptocurrency first gained traction in 2013 when a Mumbai eatery declared that it would take it as payment. Unocoin, a cryptocurrency exchange, was created the same year, allowing Indians to buy and trade Bitcoin. In 2013, the price of bitcoin increased from $100 to $1,000.


The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) then stepped in and issued an advise against cryptocurrencies, cautioning the general population from using them. "Virtual currencies are not supported by a central bank, and their value is not underpinned by an asset, making them a matter of speculation," according to the RBI.


It is worth noting that two PILs were filed in the Supreme Court between October and November of 2017. While one advocated for the outright ban of cryptocurrencies in India, the other advocated for their regulation. Following this, the government established a committee in 2017-18 to investigate the issues surrounding digital currencies and make recommendations for appropriate actions.




Meanwhile, the RBI issued an announcement in 2018 prohibiting banks from dealing in cryptocurrencies or providing any services to anyone dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges. This had a significant impact on the industry and exchanges, as cryptocurrency prices plummeted. Blockchain experts have even left the country in search of greener pastures. As trading volumes fell, nearly 95% of jobs were reported to have been lost by August 2018.


The government formed committee issued its report in July 2019, proposing a complete ban on cryptocurrencies. However, the Supreme Court in early March 2020, nullified the RBI’s circular, and subsequently the ban. Revoking the ban, the Supreme Court stated that while cryptocurrencies are unregulated, they are not illegal in India. The news came as a fresh breath of air for the crypto market that bounced back to life. The price of Bitcoin reportedly jumped more than 700 per cent between April 2020 and February 2021. 


Rumours of a ban, however, continued to haunt the sector through 2021. In January 2021, the government stated that it will introduce a bill to create a sovereign digital currency, and ban all private cryptocurrencies. This was bad news for the industry that had just begun to revive. 


The government’s decision on the matter of regulating/ banning cryptocurrencies is still pending. Currently, there is no regulation or any ban on the use of cryptocurrencies in the country.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Google Pay has hired a PayPal executive to lead its crypto payments push.

By Chief
  Google has hired a former PayPal executive to help strengthen Google Pay, and the company has plans to expand into the cryptocurrency space. Arnold Goldberg has been appointed to lead Google's payments division as part of the company's overall push into financial services, including cryptocurrency. Google’s President of Commerce Bill Ready told Bloomberg that: “Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to , As user demand and merchant demand evolves, we’ll evolve with it.” It will hire people with blockchain experience, according to Richard Widmann, head of strategy for digital assets at Google's cloud unit, in an article published by CNBC. These employees will be part of the company's decentralisation strategy. Companies working in blockchain and distributed-ledger technologies, such as Dapper Labs, Hedera, and Theta Labs, are already using Google Cloud for scalability and security, according to a blog post by the company. Other businesses will be able to use blo...
Post a Comment
Read more

WHY ETHERIUM IS FALLING?

By Chief
A Massive Sell-off has taken place in Crypto Market Altcoins are down big today with some trading more than 30% lower, but the drops in giants like Bitcoin and Etherium are staggering. There are a couple of things to look at in short-term trading. One is that liquidations are accelerating as investors with leveraged bets that crypto prices would rise are liquidated from those positions. According to coinglass.com, $1.14 billion in crypto positions have been liquidated in the last 24 hours and $416 million of that batch came in just the last four hours. 3 MONTHS AGO (OCT. 11) - $4,868 ONE WEEK AGO (JAN. 13) - $3,410 TOMMORROW (JAN. 22) - $2,300 This is happening across the industry, but Ethereum is being hit hardest with $113 million in liquidations in the last four hours. Being the second day of the market failure, Ethereum (ETH) steps down sinking deeper and deeper, Upon the first market crash of the year 2022, around January 1st week, ETH dropped down below the much expected stable s...
3 comments
Read more

The stolen $750 million in Bitcoin (BTC) from the Bitfinex hack in 2016 is on the move.

By
A large amount of Bitcoin is on the move, which was previously linked to the 2016 Bitfinex exchange hack. Recently, the popular Twitter handle Whale Alert reported two such incidents in which Bitcoins worth more than $750 million were transferred to an unknown wallet. According to a recent report, more than 20,000 Bitcoins were moved in two separate transactions of 10,000 BTC each. This is the second time in the last year that hackers have moved funds stolen from the Bitfinex hack in 2016. At the time, 119,756 BTC were stolen from the exchange, causing the market to crash. Last year when Bitcoin was trading at its all-time high in mid-April 2021, the hackers had moved the first batch of Bitcoins worth $750 million. Will This Affect the Price of Bitcoin? It will be interesting to see if this move adds to the volatility of the Bitcoin price. Nearly 20% of the total Bitcoin stolen has been moved by hackers. While most exchanges have made it impossible to cash out stolen exchanges, hackers...
Post a Comment
Read more