No Plans To Introduce Cryptocurrency: Govt Informs Parliament

New Delhi: Minister of State (MoS) for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary on Tuesday informed the parliament that the government has no plans to introduce cryptocurrency.

The Minister further said that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is working towards a phased implementation strategy for introduction of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

"RBI does not issue cryptocurrency. Traditional paper currency is a legal tender and is issued by RBI in terms of provisions of RBI Act, 1994. A digital version of traditional paper currency is called CBDC," he said in a written reply.

In August 2021, the RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had hinted that the banker's bank might come up with the launching of a pilot of its digital currency by the last month of 2021.

The bank, however, had not yet decided whether to go for distributed ledger technology or centralized ledger if it goes ahead with the plan of launching its digital currency.

Notably, in February this year, the Deputy Governor RBI had advocated a complete ban on cryptocurrency in the country citing that it has no intrinsic value and can be worse than a Ponzi scheme.

He had said that after examining the arguments which advocated the regulation of cryptocurrencies, we found that none of them have passed the basic test.

He said this while speaking at the Indian Banks Association 17th Annual Banking Technology Conference and Awards.

The Deputy Governor, T Rabi Sankar had demolished all the arguments for allowing cryptocurrencies in India as none of them pass basic scrutiny.

''It will be good if cryptocurrencies are banned,'' he had said.

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