Draft legislation that might allegedly impose a ban on the utilization of cryptocurrencies in India is being circulated by local blockchain legal experts on social media, however, sources said it is still unsure.
An unconfirmed document published to Scribd by tech attorney VarunSethi on July 15 seems to uncover a draft bill entitled “Banning of Cryptocurrency& Regulation of Official Digital Currencies. “Even if valid, the bill won't purportedly be debated during the 2019 Monsoon session of the Indian parliament, as indicated by one nearby crypto industry figure.
Running at 18 pages, the record proposes a meaning of digital forms of money as "any data or code or number or token not being a piece of any Official Digital Currency, created through cryptographic methods or something else, giving a digital representation of value.”
The definition then additional notes such currencies’ use in exchange, as a store of account or value, and includes their use in monetary transactions as well as investment schemes.
The proposed bill recommends that a "Digital Rupee" — digitally issued by the nation's Reserve Bank — would be affirmed by the Central Government as lawful delicate, while all currencies satisfying the expressed digital currency definition would be completely restricted.
The document reads:
“No person shall mine, generate, hold, sell, deal in, issue, transfer, and dispose of or use Cryptocurrency in the territory of India.”
The proposed prohibition notably doesn't apply to anyone using distributed ledger technologies (DLT) or different related technologies for the purposes of experiments or analysis, including within academic contexts, as long as no cryptocurrencies are concerned for transacting payments.
The prohibition would additionally not apply to the utilization of DLT for creating a network that delivers monetary or different services, or for other means of value creation, provided that again that such activities don't involve the utilization of cryptocurrencies as payment.
The projected penalty for violating the prohibition on cryptocurrencies — that expressly excludes the Digital Rupee — would be either a fine or up to 10 years’ imprisonment, or both.
As recently reported, the reserve bank of India (RBI) is rumored to be developing a blockchain platform for banking in its R&D branch. At the beginning of this year, it had been reported that RBI had paused its plans to issue its own central bank digital currency.
Meanwhile, Facebook is alleged to have withheld from applying to RBI for approval for its forthcoming Libra token, in light of the country’s reported consideration of an entire prohibition of cryptocurrencies and long history of crypto-adversarial actions. This June, RBI has denied it has any information or involvement within the drafting of such a prohibition by the Govt.
To know more on Cryptocurrency and Blockchain events, follow us on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Telegram, BitcoinTalk, and we are also on Medium now
