City Sankar Financial News

Mumbai: Tough talk by senior Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials on cryptocurrencies is making the Indian crypto community nervous. On Monday, RBI deputy governor T Rabi Sankar called for an outright ban on cryptocurrencies. Previously, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das had said in a monetary policy press conference that private cryptocurrencies were a threat to the macroeconomic and financial stability of the country, and investors should keep risks in mind as such assets have no underlying value whatsoever, «not even a tulip».

All of the top digital tokens were trading higher in early trade on Tuesday, led by NFTs and DeFi tokens. Solana and Avalanche rose 11 per cent each. The global crypto market cap jumped as much as 5 per cent to hit the $1.95 trillion mark. Furthermore, the total crypto market volume rallied about 16 per cent to $72.23 billion.

India should ban cryptocurrencies as they are related to Ponzi schemes or worse and they pose a threat to financial and macroeconomic stability, a deputy governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said.

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor T Rabi Sankar Monday said that banning private cryptocurrencies is the best option for the country, reiterating its tough stand on the asset class. Sankar, who was speaking at the IBA Banking Technology Awards, told bankers that even the notorious early-20th century Ponzi schemes were better as the Ponzi plans invested in income earning assets while cryptos are just gambling instruments. “They (cryptos) threaten the financial sovereignty of a country and make it susceptible to strategic manipulation by private corporations creating these currencies or governments that control them,” Sankar said. “All these factors lead to the conclusion that banning cryptocurrency is perhaps the most advisable choice open to India.”

T. Rabi Sankar from the Reserve Bank of India compared cryptocurrency to ponzi schemes and said that banning them, not regulating them, would be the “most advisable choice” for the Indian government.

crypto community, in reaction to central bank governor Shaktikanta Das' statement that private cryptocurrencies are a big threat to India's financial and macroeconomic stability, has said crypto assets could help unlock the country's innovation, job-creation and economic potential. Also, the exchanges said they praised the stance of the central bank and the government that customer protection is a priority. «The good thing is that the government and regulators have been very consultative in their approach to the industry, and there is broad understanding that customer protection is of utmost importance. It is encouraging to see India thinking progressively about crypto at par with global counterparts like the US, Dubai, and Singapore,» said Ashish Singhal, founder and CEO, CoinSwitch.

Union Finance Minister  on February 1 said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2022-23, marking the first official statement from the Union government on the launch of the much-awaited digital currency.

fad across the world and India will next fiscal, beginning April 1, have its own version of the same which essentially would mirror the prevalent physical currency in digital form. The currency, called 'digital rupee', will be issued by the Reserve Bank in digital form and will be fungible with physical currency. The exact regulation governing this Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is yet to be finalised.