Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

Crypto Could Seriously Harm India’s Financial, Macroeconomic Stability: RBI Guv

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das reiterated this after cryptocurrencies crashed.
May 24, 2022
Crypto

India’s position on cryptocurrencies has not always been clear, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das reiterated on Monday, May 23. The RBI governor said that the central bank had warned against cryptocurrencies for a long time and now it has collapsed.

Shaktikanta Das said that after the crypto market crash, people will wonder if RBI will ever control digital assets. Das told CNBC TV18 in an exclusive interview, “We have warned against cryptocurrencies and now let’s look at what happened in the cryptocurrency market. If we had already regulated it, people would wonder what happened to this regulation.”

The RBI governor said, “This is something in which nothing is inherent (value). There are big questions about how to control it. Our position is very clear, it is seriously threatening India’s financial, financial and macroeconomic stability.”

The global cryptocurrency market has recently suffered a major drop, with the world’s largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, losing value earlier this month to trade at $27,000. It was a decline of over 50 percent from the all-time high of $69,000. Bitcoin has remained stable since then and has not traded above $30,000 in a few days.

The RBI has said for some time that cryptocurrencies have no inherent value, with the governor saying he compares them to “not even tulips”.

However, according to the report, RBI has not imposed any phantom restrictions on cryptocurrency exchanges. In its early days, when Bitcoin was slowly making its mark in India, the RBI planned to ban cryptocurrencies in the country. However, a Supreme Court order in 2018 lifted the ban on cryptocurrencies. The central bank has since maintained a strict stance on digital assets and repeatedly highlighted the impact of cryptocurrencies on India’s macro economy.