Cryptocurrency Bill: What Mukesh Ambani has to say on regulating cryptocurrency

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Friday backed a proposed data privacy and cryptocurrency bill, saying India is implementing forward-looking policies and regulations. Ambani, who has been a supporter of Indians owning and controlling their own data and that the country has drafted strict rules about how digital information is stored and shared, said nations need to have strategic digital The right to build and protect infrastructure.

Describing data as the ‘new oil’, he said that every citizen’s right to privacy should be protected.

“India is implementing the most forward-looking policies and regulations,” he said at the Infinity Forum organized by the International Financial Services Centers Authority (IFSCA).

He said that the country already has a vast infrastructure of digital identity through Aadhaar, digital bank accounts and digital payments.

“We are on the verge of introducing a data privacy bill and a cryptocurrency bill. I think we are on the right track,” he said.

The comments come as the government is looking to introduce a new bill in Parliament to treat cryptocurrencies as financial assets while protecting small investors. The law may set a minimum amount for investment in digital currencies, prohibiting their use as legal tender.

The legislative agenda for the current winter session of Parliament, which began on 29 November, lists the introduction of a bill that seeks to ban all private cryptocurrencies with the exception of “with certain exceptions to promote the cryptocurrency and the technology underlying its use”.

While the government is considering taxing gains from cryptocurrencies, the Reserve Bank of India wants a complete ban on digital currencies as it feels it could affect the country’s macroeconomic and financial stability.

“Data and digital infrastructure is strategically important for India and every other country in the world. Every country has the right to build and protect this strategic digital infrastructure,” he said, adding that there was a need for a uniform global standard so that the border Cross transactions, collaborations and partnerships do not stop.

Stating that the right to privacy of every citizen must be protected, he said that right policies and right regulatory framework have to balance it with the country’s need to protect data and digital infrastructure.

Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited, said that he was a big believer in blockchain technology.

“I believe in blockchain technology and it is different from cryptocurrency,” he said, adding that “blockchain is very important for a trust-based, equitable society.”

Mukesh Ambani said that India can lead the digital society and become a global leader in itself.

While a bill to regulate cryptocurrency is underway, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das is among those who feel that the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies can exist without currency.

“By using blockchain, we can provide unprecedented security, trust, automation and efficiency for almost any type of transaction,” Ambani said. “It can be used to modernize our supply chains that form the lifelines of our economies.”

India is now on its way to transform itself into a premier digital society by establishing a digital infrastructure and regulatory framework.

“The data is actually ‘new oil’. But new oil is fundamentally different from conventional oil. Conventional oil was extracted only in select locations – thus, it created wealth for only a few countries. In contrast, new oil – That data is – can be generated and consumed by everyone and everywhere. It has the potential to create value across sectors, across geographies, across economic classes equally,” he said.

His remarks come against the backdrop of debate over how India should balance user safety with the support of its digital economy in the world’s fastest growing major internet market. Foreign companies and hundreds of domestic startups have flourished amid a lack of regulation.

Ambani’s Jio has supercharged internet adoption, helping crash data prices since its launch in 2016, and his group has now built an online-to-offline retail platform on the likes of Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart. , both of which are betting big on India’s E. – Commerce market.

He said that the country is completely changing from 2G to 4G. “We are in the process of building an equally affordable ecosystem of devices to enable greater adoption, supported by the rapid rollout of optical fiber, cloud and data center infrastructure.

“The next step will be the connectivity of machines, devices and vehicles, which is the Internet of Things. With the 5G rollout in India next year, we are on our way to have one of the most advanced digital infrastructure anywhere in the world.”

Ambani said India is well on its way to transform itself into a premier digital society by establishing a digital infrastructure and regulatory framework.

He said, “Finance is at the heart of everything, and I believe we are in the very early stages of sporadic digitization, and with the emergence of various new age technologies, the opportunity is to adopt a decentralized model of finance. “

Ambani said there would be centralized government and central bank policies, but decentralized technological solutions would be the way where finance would be efficient and available to all. Real-time technologies will help settle trades not in days or hours, but in real-time. Smart contracts will become a reality.

He said, “The convergence of real-time technologies, distributed ledger, blockchain, smart tokens, etc. with physical infrastructure using IoT will redefine the decentralized financing sector in a way we never imagined, ” They said.

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