Central Bank of India Issues Warnings Regarding Bitcoin. In the last couple of weeks, some of the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions have openly criticized and warned against the use of Bitcoin and other digital currencies. The latest financial institution to do that was India’s Central Bank which is yet another blow to the value of all digital currencies. Back in March, India’s finance minister decided to take a closer look at the digital currencies as the government had some reasons to worry about this issue.
At that moment, India’s finance minister launched an interdisciplinary committee which was supposed to take a closer look into cryptocurrencies and determine whether they are stable and could they be potentially a legitimate currency that India could use or the entire market of cryptocurrencies is just a big fraud that would cost a lot of people a lot of money.
The committee was tasked to determine the status of digital currencies such as Bitcoin and others when it comes to India and in the rest of the world. Besides that, committee’s job was also to look into the regulations and legislations that other countries have implemented in order to regulate the market of digital currencies. In that aspect, they had to analyze whether or not the regulations that other countries have passed are enough to fully control the market and to protect the investors and their funds.
Having analyzed other countries experience, the committee had to suggest regulations that would firstly protect the consumers and investors and their funds but also prevent money laundering as well as financing terrorism. Last month, the committee finished their project and submitted their report to the Parliament. Up until now, very little facts have been known about the report and what it has said about the market of digital currencies.
However, some aspects of that document have been revealed. India’s Central Bank has warned that digital currencies have a really big potential of being misused by those people willing to commit a fraud as well as by terrorists. Despite that, government officials have stated that there are very little chances that digital currencies will be illegal in the country. However, the government has announced that they will be passing regulations that would control the digital currency market and impose stricter control over the transactions record and the market in general.
For India’s Central Bank this is not the first time that they have been speaking against digital currencies. In 2013, this institution issued a warning saying that Bitcoin and other digital currencies might be a huge fraud. The same thing happened in February this year when the institution repeated the same words against digital currencies.
Despite what seems to be a very organized campaign against digital currencies in India, Bitcoin has been gaining a lot of popularity in the country. Other digital currencies also grew in demand so much that Ripple has actually decided to open their offices in the India’s capital, Mumbai.
Written by Vedran Ostojic
