India has emerged as one of the crypto hotbeds of the world. Numerous blockchain and crypto startups have taken the cryptocurrency game to the next level in the country, with more and more investors getting attracted by the potential of high returns. However, the increased activity in the country’s crypto market has caught the attention of the Indian government.
There has been talking of a crypto bill being moved in the Indian Parliament. More recently, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi asked the country’s finance minister regarding the government’s actions on following the activities of crypto exchanges and investors.
Worryingly, the response of the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman suggested that the government does not collect any data regarding crypto investors and exchanges. This response is worrying because according to Nischal Shetty, the CEO of WazirX, there are more than 15 million investors in the country who are trading in cryptocurrencies. In pure money terms, the worth of the transactions is a whopping Rs. 15,000 crores.
The country also has more than 350 crypto and blockchain startups. Many of these startups have been funded by big global crypto exchanges. For instance, India’s largest crypto exchange, WazirX, is owned by Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange.
India’s finance ministry isn’t just in the dark regarding who and what the country’s crypto exchanges and investors are. It’s also unsure about how cryptocurrencies are used in the country. As crypto transactions can’t be tracked, there are suggestions that cryptocurrencies in the country may be used for illicit purposes such as money laundering or drug trafficking.
