India may be the next country to crack down on existing cryptocurrencies in favor of its own. Like TechCrunch According to reports, the lower chamber of India’s parliament has revealed plans to introduce a law that would ban “all private cryptocurrencies” in the country, including popular ones like Bitcoin. Instead, parliament would establish a “facilitating structure” for the creation of an official digital currency format issued through the Reserve Bank of India.
The proposed law is expected to appear during the current session of parliament.
A formal ban would take too long to happen. India rejected cryptocurrency as legal tender in 2018 and recommended banning existing digital money with up to 10 years’ prison sentences for offenders. The Reserve Bank argued that the currency was not real, as it had no physical counterpart and had not been stamped. The country’s Supreme Court sided with opponents and allowed trade in 2020, but this was not expected to have a lasting effect.
It would not be difficult to see why India would want to ban private encryption in favor of a government solution. An official currency would give the country more control that limits foreign influence, but it would also provide the kind of stability associated with conventional money. Prices of Bitcoin and similar currencies still tend to fluctuate a lot and are more subject to manipulation. In theory, India can embrace the exclusively digital currency without some of the pitfalls.