Currently, there is a panic in Indian market, yet again of Indian government not following a fresh, but traditional and quaint approach towards technologies. We all know that in the matter of technology, India lags far behind the developed countries. This is because of the mentality of not only Indian people, but also Indian government.
In the current meeting of FSDC on 30th October, the following was decided, according to this source :
The Council also deliberated on the issues and challenges of Crypto Assets/Currency and was briefed about the deliberations in the High-level Committee chaired by the Secretary (Economic Affairs) to devise an appropriate legal framework to ban use of private crypto currencies in India and encouraging the use of Distributed Ledger Technology, as announced in the Budget 2018-19.
Now, there is a confusion in the minds of some people, thanks to our government, which is still not clear on what it really wants. The word 'private' is misleading. Some of the experts are thinking it as private cryptocurrencies like MONERO, Bitcoin Private etc, but some of others are taking it as in general, like, private as in, which is decentralized, not backed by govt.
There is a greater awareness in public today relating to cryptocurrencies, than it was before demonatisation. There are many users of digital assets in India, and I think if even Indian government is thinking of forcing a ban, it would not be a good idea, rather a very very bad idea, and it will not be possible to stop anyone from dealing in cryptocurrencies, as it is decentralized. Yes, they may ban some websites relating to cryptocurrencies, but there is a solution to everything, like proxy sites, which currently many Indian users are using when some of the porn websites are banned.
I don't know, when most of the developing and developed countries have accepted this revolution wholeheartedly, why our government fails to understand it, as it may give huge revenues to the government? Perhaps because they are seeing their quasistatic schemes of PPF, MF, NSC, KVP in danger? Or they just want that they only earn money and not any other person? They are not banning the things like alcohol, cigarettes or tobacco, but are spending huge amount of money to advertise that those are harmful. Why not simply ban it? You are trying to ban a revolution, without knowing the basics of it, and trying just to adopt the technology behind it(Blockchain) but Blockchain without cryptocurrency will not be of much use.
Plenty of people especially who have good amount of bitcoin, WILL leave this country, if in anyway this so called ban is implemented in future, and then this govt and other people will complain that the persons with the greatest minds have left the country to serve companies of other countries. Why will not they leave?
However, I think that it will not be easy for the govt to implement a ban, and soon there will be a day when we will see the regulated cryptocurrency in India. Let's hope for the best.