India’s Concrete Crypto Rules Could Arrive by Mid-2025, Government Official Claims

The government is taking calculative steps towards engaging with Web3 because it is still curious to see its use cases.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 8 December 2023 15:14 IST

India’s Concrete Crypto Rules Could Arrive by Mid-2025, Government Official Claims

Photo Credit: Pixabay/ Sergei Tokmakov

Crypto trading and holding are not illegal but firms need to register with authorities

Highlights

Despite clarity on regulations, crypto is thriving in India
Government wishes to remain gradual in its engagement with crypto
G20 nations have already finalised a crypto roadmap

After India and other G2O nations decided to adopt a crypto roadmap framed with suggestions from global financial bodies, one would have thought the deployment of these laws were just around the corner. That, however, is not the case. A senior government official has recently claimed that a Web3-specific crypto bill in India can be expected to come around mid-2025. This means, it could take up to eighteen more months before India gets a final set of laws for Web3 firms to adhere to.

The information was disclosed by Jayant Sinha during the India Blockchain Week that is being held in Bengaluru. As the Chair of the Standing Committee on Finance in India's Parliament, Shah is a parliamentarian from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Regulators and policymakers are responsible, not just on the innovation side, which of course we want to encourage, but also on the safety side. We have to really find that balance and that balance is going to evolve over the next 12 to 18 months,” Coindesk quoted Sinha as saying.

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The parliament official said that the government is taking calculative steps towards engaging with Web3 because it is still curious to see the usecases of related technologies that could empower the nation.

“Global standards are still evolving and 2024 is the year of elections around the world. Many important countries, whether it's the US, the UK, India, are going in for elections. So, I'm not sure in 2024 the standards will develop. We also have to see what's going to emerge from the (crypto) meltdown about whether some of these companies are going to survive," Sinha added.

This update from a government official comes just days after Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave soft updates on what's next for Web3 in India.

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In her update, Sitharaman said that all countries that are part of the G20 group, can customise laws based on the decided crypto roadmap and deploy these rules that lays focus on supervision and oversight of global stablecoin arrangements (GSCs) along with support for responsible fintech innovation.

“When we move to the Brazilian presidency, given the momentum that the crypto assets issue has picked up in G20, if there is anything emerging, we will know at that time. At the moment, the content of the roadmap is what is before us to act on,” the finance minister said.

Meanwhile, the government has instructed all Web3 firms operating in the country to register with the Financial Intelligence Unit and report any detected suspicious crypto transactions to the authorities under the anti-money laundering law of the land. Crypto incomes are also taxed at 30 percent in India along with a one percent tax that is processed on each crypto transaction to maintain trails of these otherwise largely anonymous money transfers.

Despite the legal clarity around crypto, India topped a list of 154 countries for showing the most rapid adoption of cryptocurrencies on a grassroot level. The report compiled by Chainalysis in September also named Nigeria and Thailand among nations showing brisk crypto adoption.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Crypto Rules, G20

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More