Crypto in India — is it Banned ?

Retail investors in India have always been unclear about the situation of crypto assets in India. “Crypto is Banned in India” is THE most common statement we get. This whole thing gets exemplified with a proposed bill to be tabled in the budget session of the parliament. And this gets even more multiplied by the media coverage which is often incomplete or incorrect. This phenomenon of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) was seen recently when the price of USDT, a stable coin plummeted as much as 20% on Indian exchanges.

But why this FUD ?

Last week, the Indian blockchain ecosystem was shocked by the circulation of a draft bill on social media, that proposed the Indian government’s intentions on banning private blockchains. Not surprisingly, this news was met with a huge backlash from the Indian blockchain ecosystem with analysis of the draft bill, questions on its authenticity, and even a Twitter hashtag trend by the Indian crypto ecosystem to oppose it and bring legalisation in the Indian crypto space.

Points to be noted here are -

1. It is a draft bill
2. It talks about India bringing government backed crypto aka CBDC. This is a VERY BIG and complicated issue. We support this completely and we also support the fact that “Digital gold” is an asset for India, just like gold itself.
   (Source: https://balajis.com/why-india-should-buy-bitcoin/)
3. Prohibiting “Private cryptocurrencies” — classification of Bitcoin and Ethereum as private cryptocurrencies is not correct. In our view, Bitcoin and Ethereum are not private, but totally decentralised. Because of their public nature, anyone can verify the transactions.
   A better way would be to prohibit some of the privacy coins — like Zcash.

Even the clarification in Rajya Sabha given by the MoS Finance was a reiteration of the Government’s earlier stance from 2018.

1. Government is not aware that many business companies are using cryptocurrency for international transactions during the last year:
2. The Government will take all measures to eliminate the use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system
3. The government will explore the use of blockchain technology proactively for ushering in the digital economy.

But rumours give rise to uncertainty in the market, and a day before the Indian Finance Minister presented the Annual Budget 2021, the crypto community saw a massive selloff with a lot of retail investors withdrawing their assets. Investors were scared if the Budget speech will include a point and put a blanket ban on “private cryptocurrencies” This led to a USDT dump, with the USDT/INR pair reaching as low as 61 INR.

Interestingly though, some investors took advantage of this amazing opportunity and invested more in crypto assets

India and Indians contribution to Blockchain/crypto ecosystem

India has always been a hub for innovation. If the Government decided to put a complete ban on Cryptos, India would isolate itself from an era that is being compared to the Internet Revolution.

Many major Indian origin investors including Naval Ravikanth, Balaji S. Srinivasan, Chamath Palihapitiya support crypto, and with BIG wall street players/investment officers funding new crypto businesses, a blanket ban on cryptos will mean businesses move out of India and along with it the money.

Some of the already existing businesses are being recognised worldwide by the Blockchain community for their innovation including
Matic Network, Instadapp, WazirX, and others. The industry has also given rise to more career and growth opportunities for the Indian economy.

Was this really an incident of such worry?

In any country where crypto is not yet regulated, investors will be reluctant in keeping a portion of their wealth in such an asset class. Maybe it is a little superstitious, but the last time Bitcoin and cryptos got this huge limelight in the mainstream media, the Reserve Bank of India put a ban on cryptos and froze the bank accounts of the major unlicensed crypto exchanges in India. Even the oldest of the platforms stopped serving the Indian population and left them stranded, and investors had to put up with long virtual queues to execute a P2P trade.

Call it experience or being risk-averse, but Indian investors now will not take an unnecessary risk of a bank notice with the “threat” to suspend their bank account. Finally, after 3 long years has come spring season with the recent price surge in Bitcoin and other crypto-assets and the retail investors have made pretty decent ROIs. It makes more sense to encash the investments and enjoy decent profits.

Birth of B21

Post 2017, the market conditions demanded a platform that was not just for traders but was targeted at bringing the next 100 Mn investors to crypto. The platform should be easy to use, intuitive, and moreover licensed, regulated so as to keep the user assets safe.

B21 was built with this vision in mind — to make cryptos easy while providing a safe and regulated platform where millions of investors (newcomers) could invest in cryptos even without the knowledge of wallets, private keys, and other technical jargons.

What B21 brings to the table

1. Regulated solution with licensed custodial
2. Portfolio investment
3. Unified platform to
   - Invest
   - Earn and
   - Spend your cryptos
4. Great user experience and simple so even parents and non-tech savvy people can onboard
5. Career opportunities
   - Large team is based in India and growing
   - Opportunity to work with global/international team on cutting edge technology and domain

B21 believes in #RegulateNotBan

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