An Indian cryptocurrency ban would have grave implications for the future of the country’s economy, and would result in currency devaluation “of the worst form,” says blockchain entrepreneur and HashCash CEO Raj Chowdhury. Chowdhury, also the managing director of the United States-based PayBito cryptocurrency exchange, said India’s rejection of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies would be the equivalent of rejecting the U.S. dollar. Without regulating and eventually adopting cryptocurrency as a reserve currency, Chowdhury believes India’s economy would suffer in the long term. “Maintaining Cryptocurrency reserves are as important as maintaining dollar reserves. By banning crypto, India will end up …

Leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced it is “establishing a business presence in India” despite uncertain regulatory headwinds for crypto in the country. In a March 25 blog post, Coinbase revealed it is planning to house “some IT services, including engineering, software development and customer support operations in India,“ noting the country’s “huge pool of world-class engineering talent.” “India has long been known as a hub for engineering and technology innovation, and we look forward to finding that world-class talent to help the Coinbase group develop new ways for our customers to interact with the cryptoeconomy.” Despite the announcement, …

Prominent Indian entrepreneur and government advisor Nandan Nilekani has spoken in favor of cryptocurrencies as the government reportedly mulls a ban on private digital assets. Nilekani joined a Clubhouse session with angel investor Balaji Srinivasan to discuss the state of crypto in India, local business news publication Moneycontrol reported Monday. Nilekani is a co-founder of major Indian tech company Infosys and the founding architect of the national biometric ID system, Aadhaar. He is also the chairman of a special Indian committee assessing digital payments in India and an advisor to several government agencies and the Reserve Bank of India. During …

Recent political developments in the United States demonstrate the critical challenges that centralized technology platforms pose to democracy — in stark contrast to the powerful role social media played in pro-democracy movements in the Middle East and Hong Kong. U.S. election misinformation and disinformation, as well as white nationalism, spread throughout online groups, and prominent political and social leaders found means to amplify falsehoods through technology platforms. Within both the public eye and darker corners of the internet, organizers, including members of the Proud Boys, planned the storming of the U.S. Capitol to stop what they believed to be a …

The mysterious buyer of the world’s most expensive non-fungible token “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” by Beeple, has revealed their identity. Metapurse, a global NFT fund whose founder successfully bid and acquired the piece in a Christie’s auction for $69.3 million in early March, penned a blog post Thursday, disclosing the real names and stories of key figures behind the project. According to the announcement, Vignesh Sundaresan is the real name of MetaKovan, the pseudonymous founder of Metapurse and the buyer of the Beeple’s $69 million NFT. Before founding Metapurse, Sundaresan had been actively involved in the crypto industry since …

The minister of finance of India, Nirmala Sitharaman, has given a ray of hope for the Indian cryptocurrency community as more fear, uncertainty and doubt circulate regarding a supposedly impending ban on digital assets. In a Saturday interview with India Today, Sitharaman emphasized that the ministry does not plan to shut off Indian innovations associated with Bitcoin (BTC) and its underlying blockchain technology. “From our side, we are very clear that we are not shutting all options off. We will allow certain windows for people use, so that experiments on the blockchain, Bitcoins or cryptocurrency [...] and fintech, which depend …

Yet another “crypto ban” turns out to be temporary FUD. In an interview with CNBC this morning, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that reports of a blanket ban on cryptocurrencies are overstated. While negotiations are ongoing, she said she expects the end result to be more tempered: “Yes, a lot of negotiations, discussions are happening, with Reserve Bank,” said Sitharaman. “Obviously the Reserve Bank will be taking a quorum on how, what kind of unofficial currency, cryptocurrency will have to be planned, and how it has to be regulated. But also, we want to make sure that there’s a …

Tata Power DDL, a leading electricity distribution company that serves over seven million residents in North Delhi, is piloting a solar energy trading project together with Australian blockchain firm PowerLedger and the India Smart Grid Forum, or ISGF. The pilot, which runs until June, aims to enable the development of distributed energy infrastructure and electronic trading resources that will encourage consumers to become prosumers — consumers who also produce — by selling their excess rooftop solar power in a peer-to-peer marketplace. Using PowerLedger's blockchain technology to provide transparent settlement of energy trades, the pilot will test out various trading algorithms, …

India’s Unicas crypto bank opened its third physical branch last week in New Delhi. Previous locations were launched in Jamnagar and Jaipur. Unicas reportedly allows customers to access fiat and crypto services at the bank and provides digital loans using crypto holdings as collateral. The bank aims to launch 50 branches across the country by the end of the year and 50 more by the end of 2022. Its plans may be stifled, however, due to a crypto bill that is awaiting consideration in India’s parliament. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill is intended to "prohibit all …

India’s central bank has recognized the potential benefits of central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, but not without including a few pitfalls. The Reserve Bank of India offered its assessment of CBDCs as part of its report on currency and finance issued on Sunday. As a part of the report, the RBI noted that several countries are exploring the creation of their own sovereign national digital currency. According to the central bank’s report, CBDCs can help to promote financial inclusion and transactional transparency. The RBI also stated that national digital currencies could be useful as an instrument of monetary transmission …

Indian cryptocurrency exchange Unocoin has adopted the blockchain-based Unstoppable Domains, which simplifies crypto transactions by turning blockchain addresses into human-readable web URLs. Announced on Wednesday, the partnership between Unocoin and Unstoppable Domains — both funded by Silicon Valley investor Tim Draper — is expected to reduce remittance costs and simplify the transaction process for the exchange’s 1.2 million users. Unstoppable Domains turns crypto addresses into decentralized websites on the Ethereum and Zilliqa blockchains. Instead of sending coins to a 42-character blockchain address, Unstoppable Domains allows users to create simple URLs ending in “.crypto” and “.zil” extensions. Domain names need only …

Indian authorities continue to express support for a government-backed digital currency to replace privately-issued cryptocurrencies. According to Bloomberg, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das has expressed the central bank’s determination to create a digital rupee. According to Das, India’s central bank is “very much in the game” and wants to emulate China’s digital currency electronic project, the digital yuan. The RBI chief also revealed that the digital rupee project is a major focus for the central bank. While there has been no official release date for the proposed CBDC, Das said that the RBI is currently finetuning the technological and procedural protocols …