Top Crypto News Today: India aims to focus on a Framework for Crypto during G20 Presidency, Says Sitharaman

Back in February, during the Union Budget Session 2022, Nirmala Sitharaman had mentioned that the government is looking into the crypto assets and referred them as virtual digital assets. Apart from talking about the taxations that will be levied on crypto, Sitharaman also mentioned that the government will be looking closely at CBDCs. The finance ministry believes that this introduction of CBDC shall provide a significant push to the digital economy and added that it will lead to a more cheaper and efficient currency management system. 

However, moving on from the contents of the Union Budget, there has not been any set process for understanding crypto and how that asset will be a part of the countries globally. On Saturday, Sitharaman told a group of Indian reporters, before completing her trip to Washington DC to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that crypto will be a part of India’s agenda during the G-20 presidency. 

Every country that has got into the CBDC space is either including crypto and blockchain to support the economy of the country or is getting into regularizing the assets and understanding them before they move ahead with any step. With the RBI looking into CBDCs, the Indian government is aiming at developing or setting up a standard operating procedure for crypto during its G20 presidency which will start next year. While pointing it out, Sitharaman also underlined that all countries do want the technology to survive but not misutilised.

Read more: Central Bank unveils features of CBDCs

With the massive adoption of the crypto space, globally, the regulators are at the cusp of going bullish but due to the lack of SOP set in place, the procedures are delayed. India is set to have around 200 meetings countrywide during its G-20 presidency. With that set in place, Sitharaman is making a strong case for global regulation of cryptos to tackle the risks of money laundering and terror funding during the tenure. Taking note that institutions, which are associated with the G-20 or the World Bank or any such organization, are conducting their own assessment and studies of matters that are related to crypto or crypto assets, Sitharaman said, “We would definitely want to collate all this and do a bit of study and then bring it on to the table of the G-20 so that members can discuss it and hopefully arrive at a framework or SOP so that globally, countries can have a technology-driven regulatory framework.”

Sitharaman has also shared her concern that it will be quite difficult for any single country to take up the task of effectively handling or regularizing crypto. According to sources, the countries want the technology to survive but it should also be in a position for the FinTech sector along with others to stand a chance of benefiting from it. As per the Money Control news, Sitharaman said “There is an understanding that we need to have some kind of regulation, and that all the countries will have to be true together on it, no one country is going to be able to singularly handle it. So on that, we will certainly have something.”

Source: MoneyControl