Is India Banning Cryptocurrency? How Can It Do That?: QuickTake – Bloomberg
India is one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for cryptocurrency trading, even though the ability to trade Bitcoin and its peers freely and anonymously undermines the country’s limits on the convertibility of its currency, the rupee. The central bank is clear that it wants all private cryptocurrencies banned while it creates an official digital currency. The government, however, is op…….
India is one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for cryptocurrency trading, even though the ability to trade Bitcoin and its peers freely and anonymously undermines the country’s limits on the convertibility of its currency, the rupee. The central bank is clear that it wants all private cryptocurrencies banned while it creates an official digital currency. The government, however, is open to exceptions to promote blockchain technology. Amid these competing goals, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration is racing to finalize legislation in time for the last parliament session of the year.
It’s one of the biggest in the region and expanding rapidly. An October report from Chainalysis, a crypto-analysis firm, found the Indian market grew 641% over the period from July 2020 through June 2021. As a whole, central and southern Asia was the fourth-largest crypto market studied, with more than $572.5 billion in value received during that period, or 14% of global transaction value. Transfers worth more than $10 million represented 42% of transactions sent from India-based addresses during that period, versus 28% for Pakistan and 29% for Vietnam. That suggested a more mature Indian market. At the same time India — with a relatively young and tech-savvy population — was second only to Vietnam in growth of crypto adoption by retail investors in the region.
