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According to a recent report, Indian Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman said that many countries had advised against rushing into cryptocurrency while addressing questions on Facebook’s Libra during the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Sitharaman stated:
“On our side, the Reserve Bank Governor spoke about it during our turn to intervene. I got the sense that many countries were cautioning on rushing into this. Some of them [countries] of course even suggested that they shouldn’t be using, all of us shouldn’t be using the name stable currency because that’s the expression they used. Many cautioned to the extent saying even the name should not be stable currency, it should relate to virtual currency or something of the kind”
Indian authorities have made it clear that “private cryptocurrency”, such as Facebook’s Libra, is “not something they are comfortable with”. The social networking giant’s upcoming global coin has met with resistance and apprehension from many countries. This, however, was the first time that the Indian Finance Minister expressed concern about it.
Indian regulators have constantly echoed concerns over the cryptocurrency space and a positive discussion, which is the need of the hour, seems to be positioned to take place in the rather distant future. The postponement of the Supreme Court hearings on cryptocurrency has only delayed clarity on the status of cryptocurrency in India.
Sitharaman echoed a similar sentiment to the recently released report presented by a G7 working group and acknowledged the strengths of the space, and also said that the risks associated with it cannot be undermined and hence should take steps cautiously. The finance minister stated:
“In fact, this morning some of the presentations were also highlighting the strengths of such virtual currency. But equally everyone without fail spoke about the challenges together with talking about it as a if necessary step forward. So everyone was stepping cautiously on it”