Crypto, Metaverse Threats as Serious as Those Around Dynamite: Home Minister Amit Shah

India's Home Minister Amit Shah has compared threats around crypto and metaverse to be as serious as those around dynamite explosions or hawala cases. Shah was addressing a meeting of the G20 when he said that a common strategy is needed at a global level to deal with the threat shift that now extensively includes vulnerabilities on widely used and relied-on cyber networks. As part of its ongoing G20 presidency, India is working on bringing out rules to govern the crypto sector on a global level.

The home minister was addressing the need to tackle new kinds of crime that are making it to the headlines in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as well as Web3 elements like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse.

Shah, during his speech, noted that there has been an evident shift in the kinds of security threats that make for matters of serious concerns in the times that we live in.

"The shift in our conventional security threats from 'Dynamite to Metaverse)' and from 'Hawala to Cryptocurrency ' is certainly a matter of concern for all nations. To tackle this, a common strategy has to be prepared,” Shah said.

The minister also shared a clipping of his speech on his Twitter handle, followed by 33.2 million handles.

In the coming week, India will host the third G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBGs) meeting in Gujarat's Gandhinagar.

The meeting will also be attended and co-chaired by union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman as well as RBI governor Shaktikanta Das.

By December this year, India is expected to have some progress on global crypto laws.

Meanwhile, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, recently acknowledged that crypto and Web3 are elements of the next generation of Internet.

Having said that, the minister added that rules and regulations are most needed to govern the crypto space just to make it safe for everybody to use and engage with.