The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 seek to ban all but a few private cryptocurrencies to promote underlying technologies while allowing an official digital currency by RBI.
The winter session of the Indian Parliament commenced today and cryptocurrencies are also on the agenda. Out of the 26 draft legislation to be tabled, the crypto-bill is one of them, with the contents of the same fuelling a lot of FUD recently.
Responding to a question in the LoK Sabha, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said that the government has no proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency in the country. She also informed the LoK Sabha that the government does not collect data on Bitcoin transactions.
When asked whether the government has any proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency in the country, the Finance Minister replied, "No, sir".
Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows people to buy goods and services and exchange money without involving banks, credit card issuers or other third parties.
It was introduced in 2008 by an unidentified group of programmers as a cryptocurrency as well as an electronic payment system. It is reportedly the first decentralised digital currency where peer-to-peer transactions take place without any intermediary.
The reply by the Financial Minister is a crucial piece of information, especially since some bodies associated with the ruling party had called for central regulation of crypto. For instance, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch's (SJM) Co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan had suggested that crypto-data around mining and transactions be stored only on domestic servers.
As far as its legality is concerned, the Ministry of Finance said in a written note today
"Cryptocurrencies are unregulated in India. RBI has vide its circular dated May 31st 2021, avised its regulated entities to continue to carry out customer due diligence processes in line with regulations governing standards for Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Combating of Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and obligations of regulated entities under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, (PMLA), 2002 in addition to ensuring compliance with relevant provisions under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) for overseas remittances."
On the CBDC front, the central bank has also submitted a proposal to the Parliament. In the same, it aims to amend the RBI Act to include digital currency, the finance minister noted.
Here, it is also noteworthy that the RBI is reportedly working on a "phased implementation strategy" to introduce the Central Bank Digital Currency to Indian users. This will allow the scope of banknotes to be expanded without much disruption to the financial market.
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