The draft Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, declares that the mining, holding, selling, issuing, transfer or use of cryptocurrency by Indians will attract a maximum imprisonment of 10 years. However, this draft bill is still in limbo as Parliament keenly watches the global headwinds, which means although cryptocurrency is not banned in India, it is still an unregulated sector.

We are yet to decide on our fate on whether we join the league of countries like China, Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan who have banned its use as against countries like Canada, Japan and USA who have proper laws regulating its usage & penalties for misuse. While the RBI and other global regulators like IMF have acknowledged the benefits of DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology) underlying cryptocurrencies, India can learn something from its Asian counterpart, Japan, who have some of the best crypto laws in the world.

Institutions in India have shifted grounds on crypto many times with the RBI banning lenders from dealing with crypto exchanges way back in 2018, a move that was quashed by the Supreme Court in 2020, to be followed by the introduction of the draft Crypto Bill in 2021 which suggests banning all private cryptocurrencies in India and preparing the ground for introducing an official digital currency by RBI.

While the global divide hardens on the issue- on the one hand we have countries where cryptoassets are becoming a part of the mainstream financial system and on the other hand we see higher walls being constructed to save the citizen from its volatility.

Our panel of esteemed speakers will discuss the virtues of the suggested ban and whether it will be effective technologically and fruitful in the long run.