Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said the cryptocurrency market is a matter of serious concern to the central bank from the perspective of macroeconomic and financial stability. As per the central bank chief, the cryptocurrency market is an unregulated territory and therefore, acquiring complete information is difficult. The governor was attending newspaper Business Standard's BFSI Summit on Wednesday.
He stated that the crypto market numbers are definitely growing and anecdotally many things are heard.
"With reasonable confidence, I can say, the number of participants (in the cryptocurrency market) seems exaggerated. The bulk of investors have invested Rs 1000, Rs 2000 or Rs 3,000. Perhaps, there is an attempt to enrol as many people as possible," the governor said.
The RBI chief said the central bank has already given their detailed suggestion to the government. The future course of action on how to deal with the cryptocurrency market is under active consideration of the government.
In September, El Salvador was the first country to have made the unregulated asset a legal tender. The country's government had claimed the regularisation into the mainstream would help many citizens access banking services for the first time. As per BBC, President Nayib Bukele says the cryptocurrency will help Salvadorans working abroad to send money back home. The move triggered several protests by citizens fearing economic and financial instability in the Latin American country.
In another significant move on the unregulated currency moving to the mainstream, United States securities and exchange commission (U.S. SEC) in October gave a green signal to launch exchange-traded funds for Bitcoin based on future contracts. On October 20, the day it debuted on the New York Stock Exchange, Bitcoin breached the $66,000-mark- a record high.