Digital Currency Bill: Crypto startups seek clarity on govt’s proposed ban of ‘private’ cryptocurrencies

As the Modi government looks to introduce a new bill in the ongoing parliamentary session for India to have its own official digital currency, cryptocurrency startups have scrambled to urge the government to engage them in the decision-making process. According to the bulletin of the Lok Sabha on Friday for the budget session, The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 bill sought to ban all “private cryptocurrencies” in the country such as bitcoin except “for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses,” the legislation read. The bill, nonetheless, intended to “create a facilitative framework for the creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India.”