Finance Minister of India Calls for Global Effort to Regulate Crypto
- The finance minister of the nation, Nirmala Sitharaman, stated that no single country can regulate the crypto market; it needs a global effort.
- Sitharaman still believes that the central bank should be the sole authority for issuing currency, including digital assets.
- She noted that the rest of the digital assets, that are created outside are “using very useful financial technologies.”
- India is looking at a “global” standard operating procedure to be “agreed upon” for regulating crypto markets, said Sitharaman.
India has once again called for international cooperation to regulate the crypto industry. On February 3, during a recent interview with CNBC-TV18’s Rahul Joshi, the finance minister of the nation, Nirmala Sitharaman stated that no single country can regulate the crypto market; it needs a global effort.
Sitharaman still believes that the central bank should be the sole authority for issuing currency, including digital assets. She noted that the rest of the digital assets, that are created outside are “using very useful financial technologies.”
Ahead of hosting the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Bengaluru later in February, the finance minister stated that India is looking at a “global” standard operating procedure to be “agreed upon” for regulating crypto markets.
She opined that international agreement is essential for effective cryptocurrency regulations.
“Regulation cannot be done by any one country singularly, it has to be a collective action because technology doesn’t group any borders,” Sitharaman stated.
This comes at a time when India announced its Union Budget for the 2023 financial year. Several significant announcements were made by the Finance Minister on February 1 when she delivered the final full budget of the Narendra Modi government ahead of 2024’s Lok Sabha elections.
Notably, Sitharaman didn’t mention any modifications to income tax regulations in regard to cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currency, or blockchain technology. It is important to note that Indian crypto investors currently pay a 30% tax on crypto profits along with a 1% TDS which will be deducted on all the transactions.
Interestingly, Sitharaman issued a similar statement in 2022 adding that “any legislation for regulation or banning can be effective only after significant international collaboration on evaluation of the risks and benefits and the evolution of common taxonomy and standards.”
Furthermore, as reported earlier by BitcoinWisdom, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Information Technology and Electronics of India, stated that crypto transactions are fine if regulated. However, these comments are the exact opposite of what the central bank of India believes.
Additionally, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had initiated the testing of its wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) which was not widely adopted by the banking sector due to a huge increase in paperwork that it caused.
The G20 countries have all seen massive growth in their crypto regulations. On Friday, ahead of their plans to announce a licensing and custody framework in mid-2023, the Australian government released a consultation document on token mapping. On the other hand, the Governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, stated earlier in January that his country should not wait for the European Union’s crypto regulations but instead start working on its own licensing system.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
