New Delhi/Beijing: India is planning steps to ensure cryptocurrencies are illegal within its payments system, while at the same time appointing a regulator to oversee unregulated exchanges that trade in “crypto assets,” a finance ministry official said on Monday.
A panel set by the government to look into issues relating to cryptocurrencies is expected to submit its report in the current fiscal year, ending on March 31, S.C. Garg, economic affairs secretary, a news channel.
“The government will take steps to make it illegal as a payment system,” he said at a post-budget event telecast by the news channel, adding the trading of “crypto assets” at the unregulated exchanges would be regulated.
The government does not consider cryptocurrencies legal tender and will take all measures to eliminate use of crypto assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of payment system, finance minister Arun Jaitley told parliament while presenting his annual budget last week.
Meanwhile, China plans to stamp out all remaining cryptocurrency trading in the country by blocking access to overseas-based websites and removing related applications from app stores.
The moves were outlined in a report Sunday by Financial News, a publication under the People’s Bank of China, which said the aim was to snuff out the “dying cinders” of cryptocurrency trading and initial coin offerings “which are glowing once more”.
Faced with Chinese citizens who continue to trade cryptocurrency on platforms operated bey-ond the country’s reach, or take part in initial coin offerings, authorities will “ratchet up oversight in a sustained manner”, the report said.
