China s furtive bitcoin trade heats up again, worrying regulators yahoo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yahoo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Instead of shutting out cryptocurrencies, the government must ensure smart regulation
The government’s statement about bringing in a law on cryptocurrencies is welcome, as it could put an end to the existing ambiguity over the legality of these currencies in India. The vagueness exists notwithstanding the fact that the government has, from time to time, suggested that it does not consider them to be legal tender. It has not, however, been able to channel this understandable disapproval arising out of the fact that such currencies are highly volatile, used for illicit Internet transactions, and wholly outside the ambit of the state into any sort of regulation. In 2018, the RBI did send a circular to banks directing them not to provide services for those trading in cryptocurrencies. But this was eventually set aside by the Supreme Court, which found the circular to be “disproportionate,” given that the central bank had consistently maintained that virtual currencies were no