Shaktikanta Das, who previously warned that cryptocurrencies would trigger the next financial catastrophe if they are not regulated, now stands by his assertion and is advocating for a complete ban on cryptocurrencies.
India has not been very welcoming toward cryptocurrencies, and at a time when the rest of the globe was encouraging adoption, India was taking the opposite position.
India’s central bank has attempted to repress cryptocurrencies there, despite the fact that the country has welcomed blockchain technology. Indians have sent $3.8 billion worth of cryptocurrencies to overseas exchanges in response to the government’s implementation of a 30% tax and 1% TDS.
Shaktikanta Das, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is leading the fight against cryptocurrency adoption in India, hence the hope of India moving toward a pro-crypto stance is dwindling.
Das recently reiterated his position on cryptocurrencies at a Business Today event. He claimed that it is necessary to outright ban them because they have no intrinsic value, not even a tulip.
“Every asset, every financial product has to have some underlying (value) but in the case of crypto, there is no underlying… not even a tulip…and the increase in the market price of cryptos, is based on make-believe. So anything without any underlying, whose value is dependent entirely on make-believe, is nothing but 100 percent speculation or to put it very bluntly, it is gambling,” the governor said.
Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s finance minister, said that regulating cryptocurrency assets should be a top issue on the international stage and would be a significant topic of discussion during India’s G-20 presidency in an effort to end crypto monopoly in the use of digital currencies.
Recently, the RBI established its CBDC in an effort to lessen the dominance of cryptocurrencies in the country. India currently has the G-20 presidency, giving it the power to decide what will be discussed when it comes to setting global crypto rules.