New Delhi: The worldwide cryptocurrency market is booming but India is considering introducing a bill to ban it.
The Indian government has taken a surprising step by introducing a bill to ban private cryptocurrencies and plans to create a framework for a central bank-backed digital currency.
According to Indian media, the bill introduced in the Lok Sabha states that the proposed bill is aimed at banning all private corrupt currencies in India.
The move comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned last week that the bitcoin was a threat to the younger generation and could hurt our youth if it fell into the wrong hands.
This is the latest move by a major emerging economy since China outlawed all cryptocurrency transactions in September.
In April last year, the Supreme Court of India annulled the previous ban on cryptocurrency, after which the market for cryptocurrency in India boomed and its value increased by more than 600%.
In Asia’s third-largest economy, between 15 million and 100 million people own cryptocurrencies, valued at billions of dollars, but the future of investing in the currency is uncertain.
The bill to be introduced in the new legislature in India will also allow some exceptions for the promotion of cryptocurrency technology, although no further details have been released on the proposed legislation.
However, despite the announcement, the market value of the bitcoin appears to be unaffected and the currency rose further by 1.6 per cent in India on Tuesday, but local traders and buyers are worried after the announcement.
In recent months in India, advertisements of television channels, online streaming services and other domestic crypto exchanges on social media, including Coin DCX, Coin Switch Cober, have been circulating in the Indian media.
These platforms spent over Rs 500 million on advertisements during the recently concluded T20 World Cup and averaged 51 cryptocurrency advertisements on one match.