India becomes the first cryptocurrency holding “prohibited country”?!
On the 15th, Reuters reported that the Indian government is considering a strong’cryptocurrency ban’ law, which pays fines just for having virtual assets such as bitcoin as well as transactions. As a result, millions of Indians with cryptocurrencies are expected to be hit hard by the bill.
In this regard, a senior official from the Indian government said, “This bill will make the holding, issuance, mining, trading, and transfer of cryptocurrency all illegal.” “The cryptocurrency holders will be given a period of up to six months to liquidate, and fines will be imposed thereafter.”
Experts believe that there will be no problem in passing the bill because the government of Narendra Modi is a majority party in the parliament. Once enacted, India will become the first major economy to make cryptocurrency holdings illegal. Earlier, China also banned cryptocurrency mining and trading, but it did not penalize’holding’.
As the cryptocurrency skyrocketed every day, the Indian government said it could be banned, but the transaction volume of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin continues to increase. The related industry estimates that 8 million investors currently hold 100 billion rupees (about 1.5 trillion won) of cryptocurrency.
On the other hand, the reason that the government came to redefine the law was because of the’Supreme Court Order’. In 2019, government experts advised cryptocurrency traders to impose up to 10 years in prison. In addition, in 2018, the central bank ordered commercial banks to ban cryptocurrency transactions.
But in March of last year, the Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit in connection with the order, and ordered the government to set a firm attitude on the matter and make a law. The Indian government said in January that individuals should be banned from mining and trading cryptocurrencies, but then the finance minister stepped in to soften the atmosphere, and the attitude has fluctuated until recently.
However, according to a source, the government’s default position is to protect the’blockchain technology’, which is the basis of cryptocurrency. He added that the key is to support cryptocurrencies made by the government, but to oppose the sale or holding of cryptocurrencies that are traded without control in the private sector.