The Reserve Bank of India, which is the country’s central bank, still has ‘serious concerns’ from financial stability and macroeconomic standpoint when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, Shaktikanta Das, the RBI Governor, said that he had doubts pertaining to the veracity of the number of crypto investors in the country that had been reported by the media. He spoke about the concerns at the BFSI Summit of Business Standard this week. He went on to say that the central bank had also given the government some detailed suggestions and that they were being actively evaluated and action would be taken accordingly.
However, it was noted by the central bank governor that they had a lot of concerns related to cryptocurrencies being the central banker and had flagged them repeatedly. This is not the first time that the RBI has shared its concerns about cryptocurrencies and has voiced them previously as well. Das had said that the same thing back in September when talking about the financial stability of cryptocurrencies and had mentioned conveying this concern to the government as well. The Indian government has been working on developing crypto regulations. Reports indicated that a finance ministry official had disclosed the efforts of the government in trying to ‘fast track’ a crypto bill that would be introduced in the parliament’s winter session.
Moreover, Governor Das also went ahead and cast doubt on the total number of crypto investors in the country as well as the size of the crypto industry that has been broadcasted in the media. He said that he was unsure of the veracity of the quoted numbers, but did acknowledge that there was a possibility of him being wrong. He added that this could be because they don’t have access to complete information about cryptocurrencies, given that they are unregulated by the RBI or any other central bank for that matter.
However, he reiterated that he believed the number of investors had been exaggerated unnecessarily as the majority of the investors i.e. around 70% of them had only invested about Rs 1,000 each in crypto. This is around $13.14, which suggests that crypto exchanges could simply be making an effort to get as many people to sign up as possible. Crebaco, a research firm has disclosed that approximately 105 million people in India have made investments in one crypto asset or the other. Furthermore, the research firm had also disclosed that the total crypto investment that Indian investors have made so far is valued at approximately $10 billion.
They have also stated that 20% of people who have invested in cryptocurrencies in India are between the ages of 18 and 20. But, it is obvious that Das is not convinced about the authenticity of these numbers. He believes they have been hyped up by the media and are not as high as they have been quoted. Cryptocurrencies are in a grey area in India for now, as no regulation has been introduced so far, but the country appears to be working on coming up with something.