India May Ban All Cryptocurrency Pending Debate of Proposed Bill with The Exception of The ‘Digital Rupee’

On July 15th, a drafted bill was leaked by a tech industry lawyer, Varun Sethi, which proposed the banning of all cryptocurrency with the exception of the “Digital Rupee”. This bill would not become official until it is debated in the 2019 Monsoon session of the Indian parliament, but demonstrates India’s resolve to end cryptocurrency related crimes.

The drafted bill is entitled, “Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currencies”, and defined cryptocurrencies as “any information or code or number or token not being part of any Official Digital Currency, generated through cryptographic means or otherwise, providing a digital representation of value.”

Meanwhile, the proposal states that a “Digital Rupee” is defined as a digitally issued tender from India’s Reserve Bank, which would be approved by the Central Government for use as a legal currency.

The bill also states, “No person shall mine, generate, hold, sell, deal in, issue, transfer, dispose of or use Cryptocurrency in the territory of India.”

The proposal of this draft bill follows after complex cryptocurrency related fraud and scams have resulted in thousands of dollars in losses for Indian victims. The bill suggests that violating the cryptocurrency ban should result in a fine and/or imprisonment of up to ten years for each offense.

Rumor of this bill has also been carefully considered by Facebook’s Libra platform, which has chosen not to apply to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for approval for its token.

However, many of the plans regarding the Reserve Bank of India’s involvement with its own central bank digital currency, the “Digital Rupee”, are uncertain as it is also rumored that RBI has paused the development of this platform. RBI has also denied its involvement with the leaked bill since its release.

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