The union government is likely to introduce The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2021 in the Parliament during the ongoing winter session, beginning from today.
Many crypto players are eagerly waiting to see the positive decision from the government that could allow investing and trading in cryptocurrencies with some restrictions. As of now, the noise around the Crypto Bill has been both positive and negative.
The bill looks to create a facilitative framework for the creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. It also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India. As per the inputs, the bill allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses.
Amid the buzz around the crypto bill, check what stakeholders (investors and coin exchange platform players) are saying as per several media reports:
Nilesh Shah, MD Kotak Mahindra AMC
“I am not qualified enough to say if crypto is a fraud or not… who knows, it may be the future and we are early entrants. So why not regulate and make people aware that this is high-risk, high-return? So that tomorrow, if it goes out of hand, it does not jeopardise many investors", as per The Indian Express report.
Edul Patel, CEO and Co-founder of crypto investment platform Mudrex
At present, there are more than 11,000 cryptocurrencies that are traded across exchanges. There is a lack of clarity in terms of what the government means by private cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, Ether and other cryptos are available across centralised and decentralised exchanges. However, all of these cryptos are created by developers or companies, and not by governments, accoring to a report in Financial Express.
“The term private cryptocurrencies is interesting because there was news about governments coming up with their own cryptocurrency. These cryptocurrencies are known as CBDCs or Central Bank Digital Currencies. There could be a possibility that these CBDCs are public cryptocurrencies and all others be classified under private cryptocurrencies. However, it will be interesting to see what comes under the ambit of private cryptocurrencies, “ he said.
Avinash Shekhar, co-CEO of cryptocurrency exchange ZebPay
We are awaiting further details on the Bill. There have been many positive steps taken by the government to learn and understand crypto and its impact on all stakeholders — investors, exchanges, policymakers. So, we are looking forward to a crypto Bill that takes into consideration all the inputs from those discussions, as per The Indian Express.
