Indian Financial News

Global financial services company JPMorgan continues exploring the benefits of blockchain, deploying the technology to eliminate some restraints of traditional finance.

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.__________

A top federal official representing India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), recommended all banks adopt artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology to ensure sustainable growth and stability.

Emerging technologies such as blockchain are ushering in a new era of interactions between humans and the digital world. This is an evolving topic of conversation for thought-leaders both inside and outside of the industry trying to predict how such technologies will prompt change in the human experience. 

Wednesday 12th April 2023  – Today, Battle Infinity, a play-to-earn fantasy sports platform within the metaverse multiverse, unveils its innovative Battle Infinity Ambassador Program at the prestigious IT UTSAV tech event.

Mumbai: Indian crypto investors, who suffered significant losses throughout 2022, are now experiencing some relief thanks to the price appreciation of major cryptocurrencies in the first quarter of 2023. Bitcoin's year-to-date gains in the January-April 4 period were 68.56%,at 5pm on Tuesday on Coinmarketcap. After commencing the year at around $16,000, it is currently trading at $28,280, marking its best quarterly performance in two years. Ethereum, the second-largest token, rose 49.55 % to $1,861.93. Experts said that cryptocurrencies gained momentum on the back of anticipated monetary policy relaxation and banking disruptions that showcased the tokens' utility. According to CoinMarketCap.com, the collective market worth of all cryptocurrencies surged by 49% in the first quarter to reach $1.18 trillion.

Web3 recruitment marketplace DeeLance is gaining massive traction for its mission to shake up the industry as it trends on social media.

SVB). The collapse of these banks caused widespread concern in financial markets as industry experts still assess the impact on the crypto ecosystem. That said, the banks failed because of their risk-hedging practices rather than their association with crypto. The support from the US Fed has meant that the markets expect them to pivot sooner (i.e., stop increasing interest rates). Bitcoin (BTC) has rallied well this week because of this expectation. We believe there are two important aspects that need to be examined in this context — provision of good banking services to crypto entities and the importance of decentralised finance (DeFi).Banking is a right for compliant platformsSVB was one of the primary lenders for unicorns, startups, and tech companies. Reliable reports suggested that it held $5 billion-worth of assets of prominent crypto firms.

The last 24-48 hours were yet another shocker for the crypto industry with the stock crash of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Though not a direct impact on Indian exchanges’ business, but popular crypto tokens trading on these platforms including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Binance Coin, Doge Coin, Shiba Inu among others crashed between 5-9 percent on March 10.

Indian-origin Nishad Singh, who was part of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle that ran his crypto empire FTX, pleaded guilty to US criminal charges on Tuesday, and agreed to cooperate with the investigation into Bankman-Fried, Reuters reported.

Back in 2021, amid the best of the bull run and the worst of the Covid-19 Pandemic, Vitalik Buterin made a now legendary donation of $1bn in SHIB to support Covid-19 efforts in India.

crypto industry has great expectations from the upcoming Union Budget of 2023. The Industry is hoping that FM Nirmala Sitraman will bring a number of changes, specifically how Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs) are classified and taxed. The 2 major demands are: 1. The 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) on sale transactions of Crypto assets should be abolished. This tax causes investors to lose capital with each trade and discourages prospective investors from participating in this market, resulting in a loss of capital investment in crypto assets. 2. The current tax architecture should be changed to allow for set-off and carry forward of losses in VDAs similar to equity shares/derivatives. The 30% threshold was set in response to comparisons of digital assets with highly speculative avenues such as gambling, betting, and so on. However, VDAs are similar to securities trading and should, therefore, be treated similarly with respect to taxation and setoff benefits. According to Delhi-based think tank The Esya Centre, the 30% tax and 1% TDS led to a cumulative trade volume worth Rs 32,000 crore shifting from Indian crypto exchanges to foreign ones between February and October 2022. The study also estimated that the current tax architecture may result in a loss of approximately Rs 99.3 trillion of local exchange trade volume over the next four years.

The debacle between the global cryptocurrency exchange Binance and Zanmai, the operator behind the Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX, continues in a new blog post from Binance banning the latter from utilizing its services.

One of India’s biggest retail chains, Reliance Retail, announced that they have started accepting the digital rupee at one of its store lines and plans to extend the rollout to all its businesses. 

Russia has managed to keep its oil moving to world markets, defying fears that sanctions imposed last month would lead to a plunge in exports.

Russia has managed to keep its oil moving to world markets, defying fears that sanctions imposed last month would lead to a plunge in exports.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India's Minister of Information Technology, has said crypto would face no issue within the country if related laws are followed. 

Since the collapse of world’s third largest crypto exchange FTX in November -- on account of wrongly reported assets which were in its own tokens -- crypto investors closer home have been demanding their exchanges to release ‘proof of reserves’ or PoR. The PoR is basically a method to disclose an institution like an exchange’s assets to quantify if they hold sufficient resources to back customer balances.

The governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Shaktikanta Das, suggested that cryptocurrencies should not be regulated - they should be banned altogether, lest they lead to the next financial crisis.

Evan Singh Luthra, an Indian-origin entrepreneur, is among those who have lost their money after the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX last month. Luthra said he lost more than $2 million after FTX went bankrupt.

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