Bitcoin and other digital coins are the new norms of the day. All thanks to the popularity of cryptocurrency, more and more people are seeing the surge of digital money in a big way. However, very soon, trading, mining, and holding digital money will be illegal in India. Yes, you heard it right, it is going to be banned soon by the Indian government. In the new draft ready to be presented as a bill, it will ban the transactions taking place in bitcoin or any other digital currency. As per reports by the news agency Reuters, the new Bill claims that anyone who would possess, mine or transact in the digital money are likely to fall under the criminal category. Thus all the cryptocurrencies are to be banned including bitcoin, and dogecoin to name a few.
You cannot trade, mine, trade or issue the transferring crypto-assets anymore. The reports also suggest that once it becomes a law, India will be the first country in the world to officially ban the usage of digital money and hold people criminals who have cryptocurrency assets. Interestingly, this very move has added the fresh surge in the cost of the digital money now. This surge was noticed when Billionaire Elon Musk was seen having Tesla Inc investing around $1.5 billion in the cryptocurrency. It further says anyone dealing with the same is likely to face the jail term. It was in the year 2019, a government panel advised imprisonment of 10 years if anyone deals with cryptocurrencies.
As far as the jail term is concerned, the government of India is thinking about how many years of imprisonment it should propose for anyone who is dealing in digital money. Earlier in 2018, the RBI was seen advising the trading cryptocurrency citing the risk of increasing the cyber frauds. However, in 2020, the Supreme Court seemed to be ruling against the RBI ban. The court has given the orders that the government will take a position to draft a law on the matter, claims the official reports. Again in the last month, RBI was not able to ban the cryptocurrencies asking about the risk involved in it in terms of financial stability in the country.
Now, the big question is what will happen to people who are already holding the digital money. The bitcoin holders will be given some amount of time duration to liquidate their assets and failing to do so will attract penalties. But the exact penalties are yet to be known as no official statement has been issued by the RBI or by the Government of India. As per reports, India holds more than seven million people who are seen investing in this domain and they are hoping to get money reimbursed before the stringent law is going to put in effect. However, the Union Minister for Finance claims that no shutting of windows will be given for the digital money. She further said that the ban will be partal and not going to block everything. She was speaking at the India Today Conclave when she pointed out the same.