Cryptocurrencies have been debated and discussed for a long time now, but they’re only unveiled as “financial tools” that are useful to more than only reactionary connoisseurs. Cryptocurrencies have the prospect to authorize social and economic growth throughout the world, including developing countries, by proffering easier access to capital and financial services.
Change in Economy due to Cryptocurrency:
Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin certainly have a highly utilitarian, yet also an upsetting quality that has slowly but gradually started to hinder the way the “traditional financial system” works.
- An Instrumental Rise in Economic Activities:
There exists an entire industry that has been built based on cryptocurrencies, and it is also under some institutions dedicated to supervising all the digital currency exchanges situated all over the world. The growth of the “cryptocurrency industry” is earth-shattering. It can also be mentioned by early-adopters who have become rich overnight and have found immense opportunities to have noticed financial growth.
- Huge Opportunities for Poorly Banked Countries:
The interest rate of Cryptocurrency is anything but fair, which gradually leads to more instability among the people who have requested for loan. This is where cryptocurrencies come on the field with their high-volatility and easy-usage.
- Optimum Transaction Costs:
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain don’t require an actual one-stop building to exist, as the associated-cost with their transactions are minimal. There is not at all any need for employee wages, utility bills or rent to be paid, so these savings naturally morph into low transaction fees. This thing really encourages people to trust these cryptocurrencies and start transacting, allowing the world economy to be closely weaved.
- Increased Transparency of Transactions:
Since all cryptocurrencies transactions are digitized and automated, they can be easily traceable in a distributed-ledger. The significant part about it is that it cannot be any way manipulated by either people or companies, thereby greatly reducing the risk of being a fraud and corruption. This means that developing countries may also enter financial-transaction-game and grow their own social and economic prospects.
Past of Cryptocurrency
One most popular Cryptocurrency which is commonly known as bitcoin was introduced in 2009 under the pen name of “Satoshi Nakamoto”. However, much before the invention of bitcoins, the research works on cryptocurrencies can easily be found in early of the 1980s, “David Chaum” wrote on digital-cash and cryptography in his papers popularly known as ‘security without identification’, ‘blind-signatures-for-untraceable-payments’, and many more. Those ideas were executed when “DigiCash” was finally invented in 1994. Unfortunately, in 1998 DigiCash was announced as bankrupt. By then, E-commerce had not been fully developed.
In 1997, Dr Adam Black developed “Hashcash” which was very similar to Digicash. It was having an anti-spam-mechanism where for sending emails, the cost was too high on users, for the prevention of spamming. “B-money” was brought to market in 1998 by “Wei Dai” who was a computer scientist. He developed it for monetary exchange and a mystical option to impose contracts between “anonymous parties”. His work has been referred to by the renowned “Satoshi Nakamoto” in his paper about bitcoins.
The popularity of Virtual Currency in India
According to “Google trends” in the year 2017, ‘bitcoins’ this word was one most searched term by Indians on Google.in.
What does the Future Hold for Cryptocurrencies in India? The initial years after its marketization, Indians were inquisitive towards bitcoins. The popularity and demand for bitcoins especially increased after demonetization as people wanted to be digitized as much as possible to reduce the collection of black money. Therefore in 2017, Chris Burniske, a bitcoin-trade-analyst has highlighted via tweeter with a digital chart which is tracking virtual currencies (“VCs”), that Indians are associated with almost 10% of the overall VC trade. Almost 16,754.76 coins in the trade volume.
Present and Future Scenarios
The Indian government needs to choose between regulation of cryptocurrencies, the way it is being done in countries like Japan, South Korea, Russia, Australia, and many more. And an outright ban also happened on cryptocurrencies, which has been implemented in China, Pakistan, and also Indonesia. In case of a ban, it will be demonstrated using research and data that such a ban is very much required and justified, if not, then the ban is likely to be abolished by the Supreme Court.
Up until today, none of the countries in the world has declared through proper research that cryptocurrencies will harm or that they are harmful to the Economy in the long run. However, it is very much clear that cryptocurrencies may be used to clean dirty money or to fund criminal or several terrorist activities. Therefore, it is best that India should bring a law in favour of VCs that will never impose an “outright ban on cryptocurrencies”. VCs could serve as a commodity. VCs which will allow it’s holders to stay unidentified are likely to be banned. In the upcoming days, it probably is obligatory for VC trade-offs to be registered under “SEBI”. Operators of such trades and one who publishes VCs would have to store and maintain the full set of record of all issues and transactions so that at any point of time, the Indian govt is aware of the legalized owner of all the different VCs that are in circulation throughout India.
Cryptocurrencies were invented to proffer anonymity to its holders and bypass any central authority. If the approach followed by the Indian govt is in sync with the predictions made above, it is presumed that there should’ t be any stampede to invest in VCs. However, a steady market in VCs for those who merely wish to have a different type of investment in their investment portfolio is likely to be in play.
Warning Signs of Cryptocurrency
On April 6, 2018, the “RBI” (Reserve Bank of India) prohibited organizations under the regulation of the RBI from trading in VCs or providing different services to enable any entity in trading with or settling any VCs. The “April 6 circular” further elaborated regarding such services that include registering, maintaining accounts, and also trading, settling, clearing, or even giving loans against virtual-tokens and accepting them as a guarantee, opening accounts of trades dealing with VCs, and transact of currency indifferent accounts relating to the trade of VCs.
The “April 6 circular” directed regulated-entities that were already providing some services which facilitated the dealing of VCs, to end such a relationship within 3 months from the issue date of the “April 6 circular”.
After the “April 6 circular”, “IMC” abbreviation for the inter-ministerial committee, was inaugurated on 2017, November 2. On February 28, 2019, the IMC yielded a report which stated that specific actions are needed to be taken in relation to VCs. Therefore, it’s best to put forth the Crypto-Token-and-Crypto-Asset-Bill, 2018 to regulate cryptocurrencies that prohibit persons who are dealing with crypto-tokens from illegally posing the crypto-tokens as not being securities or investment schemes or donating investment strategies due to gaps in the existing regulatory framework.