India

On 1 February, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister of India, gave the Modi government’s last budget before the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. In the speech, the minister announced a surge of 76% in terms of digital transactions across the country. Despite the growing number of digital transactions across India, the speech failed to bringContinue reading “Diamond hand(cuffed)? India’s 2023 budget could cause trouble for crypto…”

India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has released a concept note on the country’s proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC). The concept note discussed key issues such as technology and design choices, possible uses of Digital Rupee (e₹), and issuance mechanisms, among other things. The RBI will soon begin work on theContinue reading “India’s central bank shares concept note on CBDC; will begin pilot soon”

Indian cryptocurrency trading platform WazirX revealed today that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has unfrozen its bank accounts after its investigation. It is after nearly a month that the exchange would be assuming its banking operations. “After an in-depth internal investigation, WazirX noticed that most of the users whose information was sought by ED were already identifiedContinue reading “India: WazirX’s bank accounts unfrozen by Enforcement Directorate”

The 30% crypto income tax policy came into effect in India in February 2022. The country’s finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman described the tax law as another step toward positive crypto regulations. However, local investors didn’t see eye-to-eye nor showed the same enthusiasm. Many investors/traders censured this move. Incredible India!!  Indian crypto traders/investors face a heftyContinue reading “India: The full scope of what’s actually in store for exchanges after 1%TDS”

To overcome regulatory ambiguity, safeguard investors, and develop India’s crypto-business, CoinSwitch CEO Ashish Singhal argued on Sunday that the country needs to urgently adopt rules on cryptocurrency. The World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos has brought India’s legislative uncertainty on crypto into sharp focus. Singhal discussed the government’s policy dilemma on the industryContinue reading “This is what India’s crypto-sector needs more than anything”

Cryptocurrency regulations. This has been an extremely contentious topic of debate within the cryptocurrency community across the globe. Why isn’t any country bringing about structured crypto-regulations? Well, I’ll try to answer that in the context of India and extrapolate it to the world. The Indian government has introduced prohibitively high taxation on crypto-trading in theContinue reading “Cryptos, governments, and the real reasons why they don’t really get along”

Google data revealed the negative influence of the Union Budget on the Indian crypto investors. The last 90 days’ search data has shown a massive dip which makes one question the euphoria surrounding crypto in India. As per Google Trends, searches for “cryptocurrency” were at their highest at 100 on 1 February, the Budget Day.Continue reading “Addressing India’s not so ‘crypto curious anymore’ case”

Almost a week after cryptocurrency exchanges in India halted all payments, traders in the India started using the peer-to-peer (P2P) payment system for the buying and selling of tokens. P2P payments enable the transfer of money directly from the buyer to the seller post which the seller would transfer tokens from their exchange wallet toContinue reading “Indian exchanges moving to P2P: Is it a temporary fix or a permanent solution”

As people all around the world pull April Fool’s pranks on one another, countless Indian crypto investors and entrepreneurs are hoping the Indian government is playing one on them. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case as India’s tax on crypto came into force on 1 April, triggering a storm of passionate emotions. NO-maste, cryptoContinue reading “Public outcry grows louder than ever as India’s 30% ‘crypto tax’ comes into effect”