The cryptocurrency industry is now uniting against the government's order to ban the virtual currency in the country. The ecosystem will be coming on a single platform to deliberate on the possibilities of its future in India. It is to be noted that last year, India virtually banned cryptocurrencies like bitcoin with the Reserve Bank of India(RBI) barring regulated entities from providing services to any individual or business dealing in digital currencies. Later in the same year, even the Supreme Court of India refused to grant any interim relief to cryptocurrency exchanges against the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) crackdown on them.
Financial daily, the Economic Times has now planned to hold meet-ups across cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad throughout the month of March. After the meeting, the industry has planned to submit a report on the inputs provided by the crypto investors and experts to the government. Ministry of finance had constituted a panel under Subhash Chandra Garg in November 2017 but the panel is yet to submit its report.
A cryptocurrency is a digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security. A cryptocurrency is difficult to counterfeit because of this security feature. Many cryptocurrencies are decentralized systems based on blockchain technology which is a distributed ledger enforced by a disparate network of computers.
Akshay Aggarwal, co-founder of Blockchained India, the organization which is bringing together the crypto and blockchain communities under one roof said, "In the last six months, there has been progress both in the crypto and blockchain space. Banning cryptocurrencies will only curb innovation and force the investors and the exchanges to move to countries which have favorable regulations for such currencies."
Nischal Shetty, founder of WazirX, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange has been running a Twitter campaign over the last few months with the hashtag, #IndiaWantsCrytpo. The campaign got huge support from the ecosystem. The next hearing on the issue is scheduled for next week where the apex court would deliberate on the pros and cons of all the virtual currencies. Nischal said, "So far, we have only heard of scams or the darker use of cryptos but there is much more to it, which needs to be discussed and heard by the government." Many of the cryptocurrencies moved out of India after the SC cleared its stance. Notably, countries like Dubai, Singapore, Switzerland, USA and Canada have been encouraging the use of cryptocurrencies.
