Deep south in India, a ray of hope emerges for blockchain enthusiasts
Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve ever done before. — Bonnie Blair
This quote from Bonnie Blair very much suits the mammoth victory received by the TRS Party in getting re-elected to run the State government of Telangana for the second term.
From the public’s point of view, TRS Government might have taken plenty of development works like taking care of the elderly population through the “Aasara” Pension, or the welfare programs of Mother & Child with “Amma ODI & KCR Kit” or even the mammoth safe drinking water project “Mission Bhagiratha”, however the tech world is more intrigued by the vision of K. Tarakarama Rao, popularly known as KTR, the Honorable IT Minister of Telangana, in making Hyderabad the world’s top technological hub.
The initial buzz happening around the tech world was about the Startup incubator programs, especially T-Hub, which is a one of a kind unique public/private partnership between the Government of Telangana, 3 of India’s premier academic institutes (IIIT-H, ISB & NALSAR) and key private sector leaders. It stands at the intersection of the start-up, academic, corporate, research and government sectors.
With Hyderabad becoming the most happening city in India, some of the prestigious international events like the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 and World Congress IT 2018 happened here.
With the blockchain revolution gaining pace, KTR didn’t hesitate to play the cards early to make Hyderabad the favorite for blockchain entrepreneurs, which resulted in the first ever International Blockchain Congress (IBC) to happen here.
IBC Hyderabad was co-hosted by NITI Aayog, Govt. of Telangana, Govt. of Goa and Nucleus Vision and included many blockchain leaders as sponsors such as Binance, NEO, Eleven01, Tech Mahindra, IBM and Block91.
Kumar was invited among the expert speakers at IBC Hyderabad, and participated in a panel on the Future of Payments with Cryptocurrencies — watch the contribution here, as well as an interview with Kumar conducted at the conference here. The event instilled a ray of hope among the blockchain companies in India as they were optimistic about the start of a thriving ecosystem for them, right here in Hyderabad.
The homegrown blockchain companies like Cashaa’s partner Auxledger are already working with various state governments in India to move things onto blockchain. In fact, Auxledger has an MOU signed with NITI Aayog in implementing blockchain solutions across various State-level entities.
Another Indian blockchain company, Nucleus Vision, is revolutionizing the retail industry with the use of blockchain.
Kumar has recently met KTR and presented him with a secure phone using the same technology that is protecting G7 countries’ military, which will be brought to the people to protect their cryptocurrency.
Under all these positive outcomes, I see a vibrant future for Cashaa, which is one kind of a global financial services platform, giving businesses and individuals including those in the crypto industry exactly what they need.
With the current banking norms across the world making it hard to get an account for a crypto company, Cashaa says “Crypto First” and this is what the crypto world is looking out for. Despite the Indian Government proactively moving towards blockchain, RBI, the independent Central Bank of India has always been cruel towards crypto and it will continue to be cruel until the much awaited crypto regulations are released by the Indian Government.
Until then, Indian crypto businesses cannot afford to wait and need to set up their bases to keep up to the competition and that’s exactly where Cashaa can help them, by providing business accounts and other services.
If we analyze the crackdowns on crypto companies by governments across the world, we can definitely say that governments are not against crypto, but against the illicit use of crypto, hence the crackdowns to implement proper regulations. However, with AML & KYC compliant companies like Cashaa coming into existence, governments are progressively working towards a crypto-enabled economy, which became evident with the recent G20 Summit where the nations agreed to regulate crypto inline with FATF standards.
Certainly the economic institutions want to get into blockchain, but when it comes to the people running the governments, it is not only about economics but also political. Take for instance the Indian Government, which has been extremely cautious while making its move for crypto regulation, as one small mistake of a poor regulatory framework might cause unnecessary economic turmoil and in turn will give other political parties a reason to blame the government.
I’m not trying to incline to any political party, nor is this a politically motivated article, but we need more visionary people like KTR amongst the decision making teams at the national level, who keep development aside from politics. Because in the race of innovation, everyone might have the idea, but the benefits are reaped only by those who turn the ideas into reality before others do.
