“Deposits/Withdrawals Notice,” came the post title from popular Indian cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin this week. “As per orders from RBI,” the exchange explained, “bank INR withdrawals and INR Deposits have temporarily been disabled. Once an alternative method of funding is identified and deployed, we will resume the deposit and withdrawal services.”
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India Crypto Exchange Unocoin Suspends Withdrawals and Deposits to Comply with Central Bank Orders
Ahead of an anticipated regulatory move and potential clarification by the government of India on the subject of cryptocurrencies, popular exchange Unocoin suspended fiat deposits and withdrawals, noting “Cryptoasset(coin) deposits and withdrawals are ON @ Unocoin & Unodax; Using INR Balance Buy and Sell of BTC/ETH is ON @ Unocoin; Crypto-rupee and crypto-crypto pair trading are ON @ Unodax.”
RBI is the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank; INR is the international short expression for the India rupee (₹), its fiat currency. Traditional banks were placed under strict orders this spring by the RBI to stop dealing in cryptocurrencies altogether.
Exchanges filed suit, a petition, against the RBI’s policy, making its way eventually to the Supreme Court of India. Just days ago, the Court upheld the central bank’s decision, suggesting a definitive ruling on the issue will come this fall.
Workarounds
As a measure to mitigate against drawing further ire from officials, exchanges such as Unocoin have tried to find workarounds. Crypto trades for crypto is one step, and it does appear peer-to-peer arrangements will only see benefit from the crackdown.
Just recently, the company’s Unodax revealed 17 crypto-only trading pairs, including bases made from bitcoin core (BTC), ethereum, and XRP. BTC is matched, for example, with BCH/BTC, ETH/BTC, LTC/BTC, XRP/BTC, BTG/BTC, GNT/BTC, CVC/BTC, ZRX/BTC, and OMG/BTC.
As we recently reported, “an unnamed senior official from the Ministry of Finance” insisted they’ve already drafted regulatory language and “consultation is on with all the stakeholders…before coming up with the final paper. We expect it to be ready by September. ‘The ministry has constituted an interdisciplinary committee under the chairmanship of Special Secretary (Economic Affairs) to examine the regulatory framework regarding virtual currency,’ [a regional publication] detailed. ‘SEBI and RBI have expressed some reservations regarding clauses in the initial draft.'”
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