India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recently held World Economic Forum pushed for a ‘collective and synchronized global action’ in terms of regulating blockchain-backed digital currencies. Speaking through a video conference at the Davos Agenda 2022 event, Modi deemed cryptocurrency as a challenge to the changing global order and compared it with supply-chain disruption, inflation, and climate change.
“The way technology is related to it [cryptocurrency], any decision taken by a particular country will not be adequate to resolve the challenges it poses. We need to keep a uniform thought process on it.”
The latest call for a joint effort comes after the end of the Parliament’s winter session, where a cryptocurrency bill scheduled to be listed did not make it as expected.
In a brief recall, the Indian administration, as per sources, has been working on a regulatory framework for digital assets for quite some time. The bill titled “The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency” could not be introduced due to reasons unknown. As per the latest reports, the government is planning to have wider consultations on the matter and the PM will reportedly take the final decision on it.
The Reserve Bank of India [RBI], has maintained its stance on imposing a blanket ban. In its recent meeting of the central board of directors, RBI reiterated that a partial ban would not work. The Indian crypto industry is currently seeking clarity especially in the case of taxation in the Union Budget 2022-23.
It needs to be mentioned that, at the beginning of the year, India’s Directorate General of GST Intelligence [DGCI] has raided the premises of several crypto exchanges operating in the country after detecting tax evasion by Binance owned exchange WazirX. Following which the trading platform blamed the ‘ambiguity in the interpretation of one of the GST components’ as the reason for the miscalculation in taxes paid.
So far in India’s crypto scene
That being said, many new developments have taken place ranging from launching its first-ever crypto index to the nation’s Bitcoin ETF.
India’s first crypto Index dubbed IC15 debuted on the super-app CryptoWire two weeks ago. Following suit after the US approved Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds [ETF], India to soon get ETFs for Bitcoin and Ethereum, as per reports. In fact, according to The Financial Express, Torus Kling Blockchain IFSC, has signed a memorandum of understanding [MoU] with India INX to roll out the country’s first cryptocurrency ETF.