Who's afraid of cryptocurrency?

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

SEC) in the US flagged off 11 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on spot price of bitcoin earlier this month, many hoped that it may not be long before India joined the party. RBI has been maintaining that cryptos have no intrinsic value. Of course, that view is restricted to its role as a currency, not the blockchain technology that drives its use as an exchange of value.

Why does crypto not qualify as currency? Because its nature disqualifies it to be treated as one.

This 'exotic stuff' is deemed as being against how people and societies govern themselves as a nation-state. So, keeping the continued view of organisational primacy of the nation-state, there's nothing on the horizon to believe the current position on crypto will be changing soon in India.

In a nation-state, the issue of currency is a state function, and it's done through the central bank. Countries, in general, prohibit the use of currencies issued by other nations for transactions in their territories.

A monopoly position is one that hardly any central bank — and, by implication, a sovereign government — would want to give up.

Currency is also power of the state and of the political class. The 17 languages on rupee currency notes represent the collective power of states and the Centre. Politicians are in the business of controlling, not ceding.

It would be naive to expect them to permit an anonymous unit to be used as currency.

Even under the existing monetary system, the state cannot claim to be in absolute control over economic activities. There is tax evasion, terror funding and other illegal activities. Tel Aviv's decision to seize wallets containing millions of dollars of cryptocurrencies allegedly routed to Hamas, for instance, is sufficient reason