The Indian government will announce a bill to prohibit cryptocurrencies and make a framework for digital currency backed by the Reserve Bank of India, the parliament stated in a surprise declaration late on Tuesday.
According to AFP, the proposed bill will outlaw all private cryptocurrencies in the country and follows up on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warning last week that Bitcoin was a threat to younger generations and had the potential to ruin the youth if used wrongfully.
This measure comes in the wake of another such step by a significant developing economy, China, which has made its cryptocurrency deals unlawful.
Cryptocurrency use has spiked in India since the country’s highest court took back its decision to prohibit it in April 2020. It has boomed in excess of 600% since 2020 according to market researchers.
It is speculated that between 15 and 100 million consumers in India own cryptocurrencies, the total assets being in billions of dollars.
These holdings now face an unstable future.
The Reserve Bank of India proclaimed in June that it was working on its own digital currency by the end of 2021, at the same time warning that the central bank had deep worries about private cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin.
The bill will be put before the fresh parliamentary session. It will have provisions for publicizing cryptocurrency in exceptional circumstances, as per the legislature’s bulletin of forthcoming business, but contained no additional specifics about the proposed law.
