India has been postponing the cryptocurrency ban for months now, and even though there was a time that it seemed like it won’t happen, the government has re-introduced legislation yesterday, the 23rd of November, to impose an outright ban on digital currencies.
Apparently, the government is supportive of the digital rupee, which will be tested early next year, and would be a digital currency equal to the existing fiat currency. If the bill passes, we'll witness the two largest countries in the globe outlawing crypto, since China already did it on the 24th of September.
India to Ban Crypto
News on the crypto ban arrives in the form of an official bulletin from the parliament. The government has announced that the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill will seek to prohibit all private crypto in the country, but will allow certain exceptions to still promote the underlying tech of crypto and its uses. Its primary goal, though, would be creating a framework for launching the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India, meaning a central bank digital currency (CBDC), just like China did. China already created the digital yuan and has already tested it, planning to launch it in February, and it looks like India will follow suit. Since Modi's government has been more than openly supportive of the digital rupee, it looks like this will be the way to go.
The current bill was previously postponed, considering Indian officials took a second look at crypto trading. It was supposed to be enforced in March, but as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at the time, there wasn’t a complete “go this way or that way” in this matter, so they needed to take a very calibrated position. It looks like they finally have made their decision.
The Possible Effects
It goes without saying that if India manages to enforce the ban, the world will see the two largest countries outlawing crypto. This would mean two things.
One, it will be far easier for other countries to also ban crypto, and two, the crypto market will drastically reduce in size, considering currently, India is the number 2 in the world of Chainalysis’ 2021 Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index, which measures grassroots adoption of crypto.
China banned more things not only cryptos, in their list Google, Facebook, Twitter, whatsapp and more, what do you think India also will follow these things.
India will not ban the others but as far as crypto is concerned India is going to come up with some interesting regulations which will impact the Crypto trading, hold tight for Monday, Nov, 29, they are going to make the announcements.