India’s crypto market is one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.
The country’s sparked interest has attracted Coinstore, a Singapore-based virtual currency exchange to begin operations in India.
But even with such optimism, predictions, news alerts, and expert opinions about India’s forthcoming crypto bill are creating panic in crypto investors.
Whether India will completely ban all private cryptocurrencies or recognize Bitcoin as a currency is left for the country’s parliament to decide. The legislators are anticipated to discuss key crypto agendas during the parliament’s winter session which kicked off on Monday.
Is India banning cryptocurrency?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration plans to introduce the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021.
During the last parliament session of the year on Monday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government has no proposal to recognize Bitcoin as a currency in the country, reported an article on India’s local news site.
The Reserve Bank of India ( RBI) seeks to ban all private cryptocurrencies citing “serious concerns” while it creates an official central bank digital currency (CBDC), an article in The Economic Times states.
The government will, however, allow certain cryptocurrencies to promote blockchain technology and its uses.
India’s first unicorn crypto exchange to IPO once bill permits
While the outcome of the proposed bill remains uncertain, one investor is optimistic.
In an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday, co-founder of CoinDCX, India’s first crypto unicorn, Neeraj Khandelwal, hopes its initial public offering (IPO) would instill confidence in the industry. “As soon as the government or the situations allow us, we will try for an IPO,” Khandelwal said.
The timeline of the IPO will be determined based on incoming government regulation, the co-founder added.
The Mumbai-based crypto exchange is valued above $1 billion. It raised 6.70 billion rupees (US$90 million) from investors in a Series C funding round, consequently becoming India’s first unicorn crypto exchange.
Impact on the crypto market
Several digital currencies have reportedly dropped following the announcement of the bill.
An Indian exchange site WazirX cites Bitcoin fell more than 13% while Shiba Inu and Dogecoin both dropped more than 15%.
However, the author of The Crypto Trader, Glen Goodman, told the BBC’s World Business Report radio program that the global impact was “relatively small”.
While crypto investors and traders remain hopeful, they can’t ignore India’s hot-and-cold crypto relationship.
