Center may bring bill in winter session Ban all private cryptocurrencies
Amid talks of the Center bringing in a bill to ban all private cryptocurrencies in the country in the winter session of Parliament beginning November 29, former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan has said that most cryptocurrencies will not survive and ” Only one or two or a handful of the roughly 6,000 cryptocurrencies that exist today will survive”.
Speaking to CNBC, Rajan said that of the approximately 6,000 cryptocurrencies that exist today, “only one or two, or at most, only a handful will survive”. “If things have value simply because they will be valuable down the line, it’s a bubble,” he said.
“…a lot of crypto has value simply because there’s a big idiot out there willing to buy,” Rajan told CNBC.
Rajan said that cryptos can create a problem similar to unregulated chit funds which take money from people and become useless. He added that a lot of people holding crypto assets are going to suffer.
In the US, he said crypto is a USD 2.5 trillion “problem that no one really wants to regulate”. He said the problem was because regulators are not fully understanding this space and how to regulate it.
The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 seeks to ban all private cryptocurrencies in India. However, it allows some exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrencies and its use. Another objective of the crypto bill is to “create a facilitating framework for the creation of an official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India”.
Notably, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that all democratic countries need to work together on cryptocurrency and ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands. Giving the example of virtual currency, he said: “Take cryptocurrency or bitcoin for example. It is important that all countries work together on this and ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands, which can spoil our youth.” “
Several high-profile meetings have been held in recent days to discuss the regulation of cryptocurrencies. The Parliamentary Standing Committee had also sought regulation on cryptocurrency and its ecosystem.
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