Cryptocurrency Bill Listed For Winter Session Of Parliament

The government has listed a long-pending bill to deal with cryptocurrencies in the winter session of parliament.

The agenda for the session lists "The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021".

The agenda describes the bill as follows:

"To create a facilitative framework for creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India. The Bill also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India, however, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses."

The bill has been listed for introduction, consideration and passing.

This is the second time that the government has listed a bill related to cryptocurrencies for introduction in parliament. The same bill had been listed for the budget session of parliament earlier this year but was not introduced.

Since then there has been considerable debate and discussion about whether India should prohibit cryptocurrencies entirely or begin regulating them.

Views on this have remained divided.

After a recent review meeting by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bloomberg reported the government was planning progressive measures on the issue but unregulated crypto markets cannot be allowed to become avenues for money laundering and terror financing.

However, Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das has continued to express the central bank's concerns. "When the central bank says that we have serious concerns from the point of view of macroeconomic and financial stability, there are far deeper issues involved,” Das said at a recent event. He also questioned whether statistics of the number of crypto users in India are being inflated by the industry.

The industry claims that there are over 1.5 crore cryptocurrency accounts in India and has argued in favour of regulation.