India’s position on cryptocurrency continues to slide downhill. At the beginning of the year, the country was relatively warm toward the industry, but when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) instituted a ban on its banks that prohibited them from working with crypto companies, things got a little worse. Most recently, the founders of the Unocoin exchange were arrested and police seized the country’s first crypto ATM, which only allowed users to buy or sell cryptocurrencies with no fiat support. Now, the country is considering making it illegal to use cryptocurrencies completely.
During the recent 19th meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC), the subject of cryptocurrencies came up, with some arguing that “private” cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin BCH and Bitcoin Core should not be allowed.
The country’s Press Information Bureau, on behalf of the country’s Ministry of Finance, released a statement, stating that a working group has been reviewing the topic. Another group, an inter-governmental committee that was formed to propose legal guidelines for crypto went the other direction and has suggested that a complete ban is the best course of action.
According to the press release, “The Council also deliberated on the issues and challenges of Crypto Assets/Currency and was briefed about the deliberations in the High-level Committee chaired by the Secretary (Economic Affairs) to devise an appropriate legal framework to ban use of private crypto currencies in India and encouraging the use of Distributed Ledger Technology, as announced in the Budget 2018-19.”
Per the government’s words, banning the “use of private crypto…” would mean that they could not be legally traded or be used as a form of payment. Initial coin offerings would no longer be allowed and any startups looking to get into the crypto space would be breaking the law. However, it might not prevent crypto enthusiasts from owning crypto – they simply wouldn’t have any way to spend it.
RBI’s banking ban has already taken a toll on the industry in the country. Several exchanges shut down, while others decided to move offshore. Last month, some exchanges restarted limited operations that saw users being able to purchase and sell cryptocurrencies through the platforms’ peer-to-peer services, but the latest from the government would seem to indicate that all exchanges will soon be looking at make a move out of the country.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has done its best to keep cryptocurrency from taking hold in the country, despite not having investigated its merits. RBI introduced a ban that forbid banks to deal with any entities in the crypto space, resulting in several deciding to move out of the country or shut down completely. Despite the bank’s attempts, cryptocurrency in the country is still moving forward, demonstrating the power crypto has and how it cannot be eliminated.
In light of the RBI ban and crypto exchanges’ inability to function normally, a number of peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges are cropping up. According to a number of sources, P2P crypto services have grabbed hold in the country and are expanding more rapidly than anyone could have imagined. In an interview with Bitcoin.com, the CEO of the Wazirx crypto exchange, Nischal Shetty, said, “In a bear market with no banking, Indians are warming up to P2P in amazing ways.” Wazirx, which began operating a week before the RBI ban, saw an increase in trading volumes of 35% by the end of September.
He further asserted, “P2P is working great for Wazirx. It’s helping us increase our daily trading volumes as well. In fact a few days ago we hit 100 BTC in daily trading volume for the first time…We’ve crossed over $5M in P2P in the 3 months since we’ve gone live.”
According to a recent survey led by the Instashift crypto exchange, which provides support for more than 80 digital currencies, the majority of those who responded to the survey indicated that they prefer to cash out through P2P services. Instashift now has more than 900 members and says, “We are clocking approximately around [$27,194 – $67,985] per week in India & our volumes are looking promising in Canada & Nigeria as well.”
Another P2P option is Coindcx. It also supports over 80 cryptocurrencies, allowing its users to trade the coins for rupees. It operates the Dcxinsta P2P trading platform, which gives users a platform to purchase crypto “in less than 60 seconds.” Last week, the company launched a new rupee open order book on the exchange, allowing users to “place limit orders for trading in INR and see a complete order book using their existing INR wallets.”
Just a few days ago, India saw its first cryptocurrency ATM. It is owned by the Unocoin crypto exchange and is available only for its customers, but the company indicates that it plans on installing as many as 30 more machines across the country.
Regardless of what the naysayers would have everyone believe, cryptocurrency is here and it is here to stay. Instead of working against its expansion, they should use that energy to help the ecosystem grow and mature in a way that can be beneficial to everyone.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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The cryptocurrency industry in India is thriving despite the central bank’s rigid stance against it. On Oct. 14, the South Asian country had its first crypto ATM installed in Bengaluru’s Kemp Fort Mall. The crypto teller machine was launched by cryptocurrency exchange, Unocoin, for the exclusive use of its customers.
Unocoin has plans to launch 30 more of such ATMs across the country. Its next stop might be Mumbai and New Delhi, according to Quartz. Unodax’s customers started using the ATM on Monday, October 15th. To use the ATM, you must have a Unocoin account. The ATM, which offers fiats transactions only, allows users to deposit cash into their Unocoin account and then withdraw the funds from the account.
Complying with the countries regulations, the minimum limit on deposit or withdrawal of funds has been set at INR1,000 ($13.55) per transaction, while the maximum amount per transaction is capped at INR10,000 ($136). To use the crypto ATM, a customer will first have to validate his user ID, and then type in a one-time-password sent to his registered mobile number. If the customer wants to deposit money he can do so and the updated balance in the Unocoin account will be displayed. The process for withdrawal is similar, but if the user wishes to purchase cryptocurrencies he will have to use Unocoin’s website or mobile application.
The crypto ATMs are seen as a means of circumventing the crackdown of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) on the crypto industry. In July, the RBI ordered banks to cut off business ties with local cryptocurrency traders and exchanges. However, Unocoin claims that it has not violated any of the laws of the RBI as its ATMs have nothing to do with India’s banking system. Sathvik Vishwanath, Unocoin’s CEO explained, “The ATMs deployed by us do not need any banking partnerships. These are stand-alone machines that can accept and dispense cash.”
Since the clash between the cryptocurrency and regulators in India began, exchanges have taken quite a hit. Unocoin wasn’t spared, and according to Vishwanath, “At present, the volume (of transactions) has become one-tenth of what it used to be (before the RBI crackdown). We believe that after we have deployed it in many other cities and it becomes popular than demand should come back.”
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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At the end of August, rumors surfaced that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had secretly created a division that was involved in the research and creation of regulations for emerging technologies, including blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The fact that the central bank would be involved in cryptocurrencies was somewhat shocking, given that it has taken a staunch anti-crypto approach to allowing banks to work with businesses in the industry. Now—more than a month after the news first circulated—RBI has stepped forward to deny the rumors.
Financial news outlet The Economic Times first mentioned the new division in August, noting that RBI had already been operating the unit for about a month based its information on two sources close to the Indian central bank.
RBI has rejected the claims, stating that it has no crypto-focused unit. The rejection came as a response to a “right to information” (RIT) request made by Coin Crunch’s Naimish Sanghvi.
The rejection is made even more puzzling by the fact that RBI stated shortly after the story was published in the Economic Times that it had, in fact, formed an “inter-departmental group” designed to “study and provide guidance on the feasibility to introduce a central bank digital currency.” It would appear that RBI executives aren’t sure what is going on inside their own bank.
In the early part of 2017, the research arm of RBI published a report on the benefits of blockchain technology in banking. That department, the Institute for Development & Research in Banking Technology, asserted that blockchain technology had “matured enough” to allow for the digitization of the rupee.
About a year later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly spoke about the positives of the blockchain, stating that he would like to see “rapid adaption” of the technology.
The current ban implemented by RBI has caused serious damage to the crypto industry in the country. While a couple of exchanges have been able to figure out ways to legal sidestep the order, others have suffered irreparable harm. Zebpay, formerly one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, has now permanently closed its doors because of the ban.
The debate over RBI’s authority to prevent banks from working with crypto companies has been taken to the country’s Supreme Court. However, the court has twice delayed hearing arguments, only exacerbating the situation further. At this rate, India could become the weakest country in the cryptocurrency world in relatively short order.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in India, Zebpay, has called it quits.
Last week, Zebpay announced that it is ceasing all digital currency-related trading on its platform, effective Sept. 28. The exchange cited the “extremely difficult” conditions that crypto-related businesses had to operate in recently as the reason behind its shutdown.
In a blog post, the exchange explained, “The recent apst has been extremely difficult. The curb on bank accounts has crippled our, and our customer’s, ability to transact business meaningfully. At this point, we are unable to find a reasonable way to conduct the cryptocurrency exchange business.”
We are stopping our exchange. At 4 PM today, we will cancel unexecuted orders & credit your coins to your Zebpay wallet. No new orders will be accepted. The Zebpay wallet will work even after the exchange stops.
Read more: https://t.co/W8ygzPIYz1 pic.twitter.com/tPWCnyu7Yu
— zebpay (@zebpay) September 28, 2018
The announcement comes several months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered banks across the country to stop offering financial services to crypto exchanges.
It has been three months since the RBI issued a deadline to the banking industry in the country. Despite the ban, Zebpay said it has continued serving customers in the hope that things would turn around. They did not want people in the country to miss opportunities in digital currencies; however, due to the hard conditions, they have had to stop their operations.
Since its launch in 2015, Zebpay has made a name for itself in India. It was currently among the few crypto exchanges that had managed to survive after the government crackdown on crypto exchanges in the country. At one point Zebpay was the most downloaded app hitting 200,000 downloads and with an annual turnover of INR500 crore.
The cryptocurrency exchanges community in India has suffered tremendously over the last couple of months. Many have moved to fight RBI’s ban, but the Supreme Court in India has yet to make a final decision on the matter. While waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision, exchanges in the country have turned to other alternatives, like offering crypto-to-crypto only trading, just stay afloat.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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Last week, cryptocurrency enthusiasts and entrepreneurs in India anxiously waited to see how the country’s Supreme Court would rule regarding the banking ban that was put into place by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Unfortunately, they would have to wait longer, as the courts, for the second week in a row, delayed the hearing until today. As the legal debate over cryptocurrencies rages on in the country, RBI has continued to try and sway the court’s decision, but now has taken a different approach – it wants the courts to stay out of the debate.
The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) is one of the entities that has filed a petition with the Supreme Court over the RBI ban. The central bank issued a response to the petition on September 21, stating, “Inc42 has the copy of the petition filed by IAMAI as well as the response filed by RBI on September 8, 2018,” adding that the petition, in addition to others, “is not maintainable either in law or on facts and, hence, liable to be dismissed as such.”
The RBI ban was introduced at the beginning of April, setting in motion a legal fight that doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. The crypto-based companies argue that the ban is in violation of the Indian Constitution” and has already forced several companies to shut down.
According to RBI, “The impugned circular and the impugned statement neither violate the right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 or the right to trade and business guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution…The petitioner cannot seek to exercise the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Hon’ble Court to avail a right which they do not have.”
It further states, “There is no statutory right, much less an infringed one, available to the petitioner to open and maintain bank accounts to trade, invest or deal in virtual currencies.” RBI also asserts that IAMAI and others “haven’t got any reasonable or tenable ground for interference by this court.”
Fortunately for the crypto companies, there has been a few ways to get around the ban. At the end of August, Coindelt indicated that it had relaunched support for the rupee and almost two weeks ago, Koinex announced that it had begun to offer deposits and withdrawals for rupees, allowing users to use their crypto wallets. As others find additional workarounds, cryptocurrency will certainly see a resurgence in the country.
Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.
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