India’s battle with crypto ban continues: “Digital Rupee” to be only the digital currency

The Indian cryptocurrency space has no choice but to prepare for the worst following the contents of a leaked draft of a bill that is proposing a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies. The bill titled “Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currencies,” is in circulation courtesy of a lawyer Varun Sethi. It is essential to note that the authenticity of the draft is yet to be verified.

However, the said draft defines digital currencies as:

“Any information or code or number or token not being part of any Official Digital Currency, generated through cryptographic means or otherwise, providing a digital representation of value.”

And states that:

“No person shall mine, generate, hold, sell, deal in, issue, transfer, dispose of or use Cryptocurrency in the territory of India.

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Interestingly, the draft goes ahead to propose a central bank-issued digital currency referred to as “Digital Rupee.” Notably, the Reserve Bank of India via past media reports had abandoned plans for issuing the digital version of the rupee. The draft bill refers to the Digital Rupee as “a form of currency issued digitally by the Reserve Bank of India and approved by the Central Government to be legal tender.”

In an interesting turn of events, the draft excludes the blockchain and related Distributed Ledger Technologies from the Act noting that they can be used “for delivery of any financial or other services or for creating value, without involving any use of cryptocurrency for making or receiving payment.”