For last few months, I was too occupied to keep track of crypto markets and thought to catch up a bit.
Turns out that the beginning of new year doesn't sound very optimistic despite the signs of bull run.
Yes, it's true that Indian Government is proposing to ban all cryptocurrencies. The news broke out only yesterday when Budget Session of Parliament begun.
The Bill titled Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 has been listed to be tabled up in the ongoing budget session which started yesterday.
The content of the proposed Bill is not in public domain yet. So we can only guess about its intention through its title and some discussion about it in media.
The long and short of it is that Indian Government is planning to introduce its own CBDC and completely banning all other cryptocurrencies (being referred as Private Cryptocurrencies).
We can recall that Indian central bank RBI had restricted banking access to all cryptocurrency related businesses in 2018. That notification was challenged in Supreme Court (SC), the apex courts of India. SC overturned that notification in March, 2020 (just before the lockdown) on the ground that RBI has no State power to issue such an order.
SC's order along with pandemic caused "Lockdown conditions" resulted in unprecedented growth of crypto industry in India.
So perhaps now Government wants to enact some law to legitimately ban all cryptocurrencies except the ones backed by Indian and other governments.
The bill drafted by the Government is yet to be released. So it's not yet clear as what kind of bans & restrictions are being proposed. But going by the discussions in media, it seems to be proposing a blanket ban.
USDT crashes down 10%
Most Exchanges' & p2p transactions in India are done using INR/USDT pair. USDT always command a premium price over the market price of US dollar. Especially in the times of bull run, USDT prices shoots up due to the buying frenzy. It's as high as 80 to 85 INR per USDT.
But as soon as this news cracked up, USDT prices dropped below 74 INR. However, the FOREX market price for USD/INR is hovering between 72.90 - 73.00 INR.
There is a wide spread panic among Indian crypto community at this time. And panic selling may lead to further erosion of USDT premium prices. However, I won't recommend anyone to sell their crypto holdings in panic at this time.
Let the Bill be presented in the Parliament, so that we come to know about the exact content of the bill. May be, it's not the same draconian draft bill as drafted by S.C. Garg committee earlier and may be, there are significant edits and amendments to that draft bill or it could be an entirely new draft.
The bill needs to be passed in both the houses, then signed by the Hon'ble President and then published in Gazette before it becomes effective. So there is a plenty of time for us to decide on this front.
If you ask me, whatever is the bill or law or regulations, I am not going to power down my HIVE wallet. In fact, in protest to this bill, I'll be further powering up my Hive wallet soon!
Let the government do what it wants to do. But I'd continue to do what is in my power.
Stay calm, stay cool!