I just Sent a mail to RBI regarding my concerns with their monetary policy and ring fencing of Banks against Crypto Exchanges. You should do the same.
Hi there,
The Reserve Bank of India has decided to Ring Fence the entities that are regulated by them. The RBI has asked the Banks and Mobile wallets to stop catering to Individuals and Businesses dealing with Cryptocurrency. The biggest hit will be taken by exchanges like Zebpay, Koinex, Coinome and 35 other exchanges in India.
Citizens of India are clearly not very happy about it and they expressed their concerns over social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and shared countless articles and responses with each other.
A prominent movement we started with #RBICantStopMe has also been picked up and has been tweeted over 2500 times within 24 hours.
Now, it is time we directly talk to the RBI
After a recommendation from a telegram user @Hgoes, I decided to explore the option of writing to the honourable Reserve Bank and share my concerns with them.
You can share your concerns too with the RBI. If you aren’t sure what to write, I will share below my argument which you can use to express your concerns to RBI as well.
Step 1: Open the Helpdesk page:
To write to RBI, you have to go through their helpdesk page which is located at the below location.
Step 2: Choose the right options from the Drop down:
You need to mention the correct department where you want to address your query. The department should be Monetary Policy, as the announcement by RBI was made in the Bi-Monthly Monetary Statement.
Fill up the other Fields with correct details. Move to Step 3 for ‘Your query’ field.
Step 3: Ask Your questions.
Here you can express your concerns regarding RBI’s policy. But please be respectful. Do not abuse. RBI is the highest banking authority of India and they should be given the respect. This will open a channel of dialogue for future.
If you are unsure of what to write, here’s my letter to the RBI. Make sure you change the date of when you started trading.
Dear RBI,
I am reaching out to you as an honest tax paying citizen of India who has been trading in cryptocurrencies from October 2017. In the first Bi-monthly monetary statement and press conference, the honourable RBI has decided to ring-fence the RBI regulated entities like the Banks and Mobile wallets from providing services to individual or businesses dealing with Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
With all due respect to the Central Bank of India, I would like to argue against the motion as the citizen of World’s largest democracy and will hope that my words fall onto the right ears who can take necessary actions.
Here are my counter arguments:
1. Exchanges are self regulated:
The cryptocurrency exchanges in India have been self regulating and rather strictly amidst there being no regulatory guidelines from the Government or RBI. As of today these exchanges have collected the Aadhaar cards, identity proofs and even bank account details to ensure that a transparency is maintained for all the transactions that take place on their platform.
2. Exchanges do not except Cash deposits:
None of the 40 odd exchanges in India accept cash INR deposits. Not a single one. Every transaction is done through the banking channel and if the honourable RBI wishes to, they can be handed over the records of each and every transaction done on these exchanges by any individual.
3 Not allowing banks to cater to Exchanges will leave Indian Citizens with no choice but to transact over the counter.
Again, with respect to the authorities at RBI, are you aware of Peer to peer exchanges? These are the exchanges that provide a platform for individuals to trade with each other. The money is transferred from one bank account to another. The Bitcoins are transferred from one wallet to another. If the individual wishes to, they can hide the transactions. Deeming it an illegal transaction. This would not happen on a self-regulating exchange of the likes of Zebpay, Unocoin, Koinex. etc.
4 Cash transactions
The same peer to peer exchanges and numerous countless individuals on social media are offering cash for bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Once the exchanges are shut down, the traders in India will have to resort to buying and selling cryptocurrencies with Cash. Once again breaking the law unwontedly.
5 Scams on the Rise
We understand that the move by RBI is to protect the citizen’s hard earned money to fall into scams. However, blocking the only path for legal acquisition of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will open more channels for scammers to scam the people of India. The various huge scams including the recent one with Amit Bhardwaj took place before there were so many exchanges in India.
6 The exchanges are educating the users
The exchanges in India have continually educated its users and have helped them avoid falling for scams. An Indian trader is now more vigilant about scams and have been earning money out of buying and selling cryptocurrencies on exchanges that keep the record.
7 Blockchain is revolutionary, but you cannot stop the one thing that is a reason for Blockchain to exist.
Once again, with due respect, if UPI and IMPS payment methods exist but we cannot transfer INR with it, what is the point of technology? Sure we can use UPI and IMPS underlying technology to transfer data, even digital products, but the purpose to build those was to transfer INR. The purpose to build blockchain was to transfer Bitcoin. Please do not stop us from using Bitcoins
8 The speculative value of Bitcoin is huge but it cannot break the financial stability
When 95% of transactions of buying and selling cryptocurrencies take place on regulated exchanges, the money that is invested is invested by an individual. scams like the PNB fraud, the Vijay Mallya case, can create a Financial instability and a burden on the tax paying citizen. The price of Bitcoin will only rise if there will be an individual to pay that price. Hence people will only buy what they can afford to.
These are mine and communities argument against the Hon. RBI’s decision to ring fence the banks and wallets from providing services to Crypto exchanges. We hope we can have a healthy dialogue with the country’s citizens to bring up appropriate regulations instead of such indirect bans.
Thank you.
Step 4: Submit the query and share this on social media so more and more people can express their concerns to RBI.
Let us all come together for the better future of India and Blockchain.