India's government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have previously cautioned the public over crypto-currencies, with New Delhi vowing earlier this year to eliminate the use of digital currency, which it considers illegal.
Pakistan's central bank said in a separate statement late on Friday that crypto-currencies were not legal in the country.
The Block Chain and Cryptocurrency Committee's Gupta estimated that at least 4 to 5 million people in India hold some kind of crypto-currency and that 60 percent of them entered the market between October and December, when prices were at a peak.
Progress on indian crypto Lakshmi
Apart from a nod by the RBI, the State Bank of India has also taken the initiative to bring lenders and tech companies together for using Blockchain technology to share information among banks. This should eventually prevent frauds and tackle bad loans which are almost one-fifth of the bank’s loan book. This has been given the name “Bankchain” and is in partnership with IBM, Microsoft, Skylark, KPMG and 10 other commercial banks.
Coindcx Launches Indian Crypto-to-Crypto Exchange Amid Regulations
This week the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank, has banned banks from dealing with cryptocurrency businesses. Indian financial institutions have three months to cease doing business with digital asset operations but some of them may stop facilitating INR settlements. News.Bitcoin.com spoke with Sumit Gupta the founder and CEO of a new Indian digital currency exchange called Coindcx. Gupta told us about his team launching a cryptocurrency trading platform in the midst of regulatory uncertainty.
Sumit Gupta is launching a cryptocurrency exchange called Coindcx that enables Indian residents to trade over 30 digital asset pairs legally in BTC/ETH markets with 0.1% trading fees. The founder explains that Coindcx wants to give India’s thriving blockchain community a chance to stay alive and give it the strength to keep pushing for progress. The launch is in the midst of the RBI publishing its first bi-monthly monetary policy on April 5th which forbid any entities regulated by it from providing services to entities who deal with cryptocurrencies. “In essence, this means Indian banks won’t be able to allow its customers to acquire bitcoin in exchange for INR,”
Gupta explains -:
“You don’t have to get rid of your investment while the market is down, don’t sell at loss. Simply move your cryptos to Coindcx, where you’ll be able to enjoy faster deposits, lower trading fees, 30+ trading pairs, and the most intuitive platform, all without touching fiat currency (INR),” Gupta details. “Even though the government has given these financial institutions a timeline of three months to cease support, it seems like banks will stop giving services to these exchanges much sooner.”
Gupta explains that the central bank is planning to launch its own ‘digital rupee’ and jokingly says maybe the government will allow exchanges to deal in that asset. “We understand that RBI is bit hesitant in providing traditional banking and related services to cryptocurrency exchanges in India, however, this doesn’t convey any message on the legality of crypto assets of even cryptocurrency exchanges in India, and there is no official statement by Indian government about bitcoin or any mention of a ‘crypto ban.’”
However, even though the regulatory crackdown is happening in India, Gupta believes cryptocurrency adoption in India will grow faster than most Asian countries.
“Indians, in general, have high affinity towards crypto investments, just look at the growth in awareness and money infused in cryptocurrency market in India in just last six months, and it’s growing day-by-day,” Gupta concludes.
In a democratic country like India, latest RBI’s decision hasn’t just ruled against cryptocurrencies but have put the whole blockchain revolution in India to hold — India encompasses one of the most talented technologists in the world — With the use of blockchain, we have an opportunity to bring this talent out to the world