No proposal to recognise Bitcoin as currency: FM

Tribune News Service/PTI

New Delhi, November 29

The government on Monday said there was no proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency in the country. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said this in a reply to the Lok Sabha on Monday. She also informed the House that the government doesn’t collect data on Bitcoin transactions.

Whether the government has any proposal to recognise Bitcoin as a currency in the country, the Finance Minister said “No, sir”.

The cryptocurrencies are currently unregulated in India but the government has said it will bring a Bill in the ongoing winter session of Parliament to bar all but a few private cryptocurrencies in India.

The RBI has also said unregulated cyptocurrencies pose serious threats to the macroeconomic and financial stability of the country.

The government has listed the Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021, for introduction in the Lok Sabha during the ongoing session of Parliament.

The Bill seeks to “create a facilitative framework for the creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the RBI’’ and prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India. However, it will allow certain exceptions to “promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses,” said the Bill.

First decentralised digital currency

• Bitcoin is a digital currency that allows people to buy goods and services and exchange money without involving banks, credit card issuers or other third parties
• It was introduced in 2008 by an unidentified programmers as a cryptocurrency and an electronic payment system
• Bitcoin is reportedly the first decentralised digital currency where peer-to-peer transactions take place without any intermediary