The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday stretched the commands to discourage use of virtual currencies like Bitcoins and also published a study to examine elements of ‘fiat’ digital currencies which can be issued by it.
An interdepartmental group has been established to study and provide guidance on the “desirability and feasibility” to include a “central bank digital currency” and will present its report by June, the central bank announced.
Whenever the final decision is taken, the cryptocurrency is likely to fall in the domain of the RBI and the government might make some amendment in the Currency Act. If the report appears to be true then this will be a time-consuming process.
The BT also quoted a source who said that the government might name its cryptocurrency as “Lakshmi”.
Recently, RBI Executive Director Sudarshan Sen said that the government is “uncomfortable with non-fiat currencies”, mentioning Bitcoin as a particular example. In such a scenario, the future of Laxmicoin, India’s very own “non-fiat” cryptocurrency is quite uncertain.
Countries like Russia, China and Estonia are said to be considering their own cryptocurrencies. A week ago RBI’s executive director Sudarshan Sen had spoken about RBI’s discomfort with Bitcoin, which has recently come under intense global regulator scrutiny. Sen also hinted at the need for India’s own cryptocurrency.
Kanungo said the blockchain or the distributed ledger technology, which is the backbone of the digital currencies like Bitcoins, has a lot of relevance for the wider economy and we need to embrace those.
“We recognise that blockchain technology or the distributed ledger technology that lies beneath the virtual currencies has a potential benefit for financial inclusion and enhancing the efficiency of the financial system.
“We also believe that they should be encouraged to be exploited beneficially for the economy,” he said.
