The Future Of Money… Nano in Focus

Cryptocurrency adoption in India is growing at an astronomical rate. “Cryptocurrency investments in India increased from $923 million in April 2020 to a whopping $6.6 billion by May 2021, a growth of 400 per cent in one year.” Notwithstanding the legal ambiguity on whether cryptocurrency investment is permitted in India and huge volatility in prices, the country has the highest number of crypto owners in the world according to broker discovery and comparison platform BrokerChooser.

Cryptocurrencies have seen an exponential increase in interest even since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ban was lifted in March 2020, with Indian exchanges clocking impressive user additions and a sustained surge in daily trading volumes.

The Indian government is likely to regulate cryptocurrencies in its upcoming budget in February, moving away from its earlier approach of seeking to impose an outright ban, according to a Business Today report.

• A law covering cryptocurrencies will most likely be discussed in the country’s next general budget, the report said, citing Indian Finance Ministry officials.
• The government is likely to opt for regulating cryptocurrencies as an asset class, similar to commodities, with appropriate taxation of transactions and gains.
• India’s Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials are currently engaged in “fine-tuning the conceptual framework and the necessary regulations,” according to Business Today.
• In June, the New Indian Express reported the government was leaning towards classifying bitcoin as an asset class, citing industry sources, and that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) would regulate the cryptocurrency sector.

India’s “huge expatriate population” makes it the world’s number one remittance recipient in the crypto space. India had 18 million people from the country living outside their homeland last year, the largest expatriate population in the world, according to a report by the United Nations released in January.

Smaller towns are leading in adopting cryptocurrency. Last month, WazirX, the largest crypto exchange in the country by trading volume, said that it had seen more than 2.5% growth in user sign-ups from tier II and tier III cities in India.

For the past few months, me and my team have been actively working on promoting and spreading awareness about block-chain technology in different parts of Nepal and India. We have been organizing different events like charity, tree-plantation, input sessions and sporting events across the region in our effort to educate the youths about this revolutionary technology. We have received a lot of support from the Nano Foundation and the Nano community for our work.

Blockchain technology is generating significant interest across a wide range of industries in India and Nepal. As the field of applications for Blockchain grows, industry leaders are customizing and tailoring the technology to fit multiple use cases. We believe that our work will help generate more awareness about Blockchain in Nepal, India and hope to reach millions of people through social media.

The reason behind us supporting a project like Nano is because of its fundamentals. Note-making and ATMs’ electricity consumption contributes significantly to global warming. To tackle this issue many countries introduced polymer notes instead of paper notes. However, according to Evergreen Finance London a polymer note has higher GHG emissions than a paper note. Manufacturing a paper note of 5£ has a 1.8 kg CO2 -E carbon footprint. For a polymer 5£ note, the carbon footprint is up to 4.97 kg CO2 -E.

Should we go back to paper notes? Probably, not. Cryptocurrencies seem to be a sustainable alternative to cash. Taking into consideration all that needs electricity in the traditional banking system, including data centers, ATMs, corporate offices, transportation, etc, cryptocurrencies consume less than 40% of traditional banking.

Energy consumption and e-waste are mostly a problem of cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, that use proof of work. By changing their mining process, cryptocurrencies using proof of work could cut their energy consumption by 99.99% and become an interesting payment solution for those who wish to stop using cash. Nano uses a block-lattice data structure, where every account has its own blockchain. Consensus is reached through an algorithm similar to proof of stake named Open Representative Voting (ORV).

Renewable energy won’t solve Bitcoins’ electronic waste issue because the problem is the mining process. A sustainable digital currency like Nano is the fix to the future of the digital payment system.