In a major blow to Cryptocurreny industry, India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to overturn Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) blank ban that bars banks and other financial institutions from trading into cryptocurrencies. The SC’s judgment over the sensitive issue, which was supposed to arrive on July 20, was prepone after an application was filed by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
Following the judgment, all the banks and financial institutions coming under the jurisdiction of RBI will have to stop lending banking and other financial solutions to Cryptocurreny companies. The judgment will come into effect from immediate effect on July 5, 2018.
Experts claim that the judgment will make INR to crypto conversions extremely challenging. The difficulty in conversion will push crypto traders to take help of local OTC market and P2P exchanges, experts added.
India’s leading cryptocurreny exchanges Zebpay and WazirX have already made it clear that they may soon stop rupee-to-cryptocurrency conversion facility.
Cryptocurreny Industry hopes RBI will soften stand…
Despite SC’s refusal to lift ban, several cryptocurrency companies are still hopeful that RBI and Govt of India will steadily soften their stand. Entities and companies related to cryptocurrencies argue that instead of blanket ban RBI must formulate tough rules and regulations to regulate trading of cryptocurrencies.
Supporters and traders dealing in cryptocurrencies argue that by imposing a blanket ban India may fail to cash on the on-going revolution that is likely to shape the future of the financial world in coming decades.
RBI’s circulation on April 6th that officially barred banks from dealing in Bitcoin and other digital currencies was preceded by stringent stand taken by the Indian government. India’s finance minister Arun Jaitley had famously compared cryptocurrencies with Ponzi schemes and requested citizens to stay away from Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
Following stringent stand taken by the government, all top banks including SBI, HDFC, ICICI & Kotak had already stopped offering banking solutions to cryptocurrency exchanges and entities.
